3M’s 84-inch touchscreen table is great for people with eight hands (video)

3M showed off an 84-inch touchscreen table that can handle 40 finger touches at the same time.

The table uses projected capacitive technology to render images with a resolution of 4K (3,840 x 2,160). A year ago, the Minnesota conglomerate had a 46-inch touchscreen table that could handle only 20 fingers at the same time. That’s progress, and the company hopes to ship tables by the end of the year. 3M showed the table at the Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas.

With this kind of technology, you can leave a water bottle on the table or lean on it, and it won’t interrupt someone else from opening a window on the display. The company may try to sell the tables to museums and schools.

The goal is to ship a version with more than 100 touches. I tried it out, and it’s fast. You can open a screen and toss it over to someone across the table. It would be great for playing table-top games. I just wish I had more hands.

Check out our video.

3M’s giant touchscreen table from VentureBeat on Vimeo.