The Microsoft Sphere

By now, you probably have heard the news about the Microsoft Sphere. From the same researchers who developed Surface, the Sphere is a similar multi-touch device except instead of being a table, it’s shaped like a globe. The sphere was built as a collaborative effort between Global Imagination, makers of a digital globe known as the “Magic Planet” and Microsoft R&D, who added the sphere’s multi-touch capabilities. The big question everyone wanted to know was what can the Sphere do? The obvious answer is that it can be used as a globe. With the Sphere, you can view a spinning globe that displays different views from Microsoft Virtual Earth. The Sphere can also be used to play games – like a unique spin on “Pong,” for example. It also lets you do other “Surface-like” things such as resizing photos, dragging photos across the sphere in real-time, or sending them to the other person across the sphere by pressing down on them.

For a closer look at what Sphere can do, check out this video: