Microsoft shows off TouchWall at CEO Summit

Microsoft showed off a new product dubbed “TouchWall” at its CEO Summit in Redmond, Wash. today. As the name suggests, the product is an electronic whiteboard that you can control with a sweep of your hand.

The technology resembles the Microsoft Surface electronic tables that the company recently started deploying in AT&T stores. But it’s much different in design. The Surface tables use a computer, a multi-touch display, and several cameras to project an image on the table that you can manipulate with your hands. It costs around $10,000 now and will be some time before it gets into homes. The TouchWall, on the other hand, costs maybe hundreds of dollars and is simpler, according to TechCrunch.

I played around with the Surface applications during the Consumer Electronics Show in January and they are a lot of fun. You can basically get rid of the mouse and keyboard and control a computer with the sweep of your hands or tapping with your fingers. TouchWall seems like a similar approach. You can zoom in and out using your fingers, play media, or draw on the entire screen. It’s another product that shows multi-touch screens — the same kind used in the iPhone — are going to have a bright future.