The future is now, courtesy of Microsoft

When I saw Jeff Han's TED demo I was blown away - as you say Microsoft are masters at taking these kinds of idea and productizing them for the masses. Even at $5-10K, most businesses would want something like this.

Apart from anything else, it's a tremendous talking point but as I saw in the various pitches, there's real utility.

How long I wonder before the price falls to $1K?

I dont think very many companies will take out technology out of their own R&D initiatives these days -- the risk is too great. Case in point: even Apple's IPhone and OSX are built on top of someone else's innovations with a pretty overlay.

Microsoft has not innovated on technology, but they have innovated by creating an entirely new commercial product category! That in itself requires a depth of vision that many companies lack.

Thanks for the trackback!

Hmm. As many have pointed out at Hugh's sites, this looks pretty much the same as the Jeff Han demo at TED in 2006 (YouTube). All the "futurists" at M$ have done is stick it on top of an old Galaxians table-top pub gaming machine and added a couple of features. In other words, MS *still* hasn't innovated... ever! Expert exploiters, top-level marketers, genius aggregators... but I'd still like someone to show me something they actually invented themselves.