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First Look: Microsoft Surfacing Computing! — About a year ago I gave a presentation to a group of journalists about gadgets of the future and showed a video about a theoretical multi-touch computing system. When asked when we would see something like that in the wild, I optimistically ballparked 5-7 years.
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Microsoft Surface: Behind-the-Scenes First Look (with Video) — The software giant will announce at the D5 conference today that it's built a new touchscreen computer—a coffee table that will change the world. Go inside its top-secret development with PopularMechanics.com …


Microsoft Announces Surface Computer — At the D: All Things Digital conference Wednesday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will unveil Microsoft Surface, the first in a new category of surface computing products from Microsoft that will "break down traditional barriers between people and technology".
Discussion:
Gadgetell, I4U News, 901am, The Apple Blog, Zoli's Blog, duncanriley.com and Lost Remote

Microsoft Launches New Product Category: Surface Computing Comes to Life in Restaurants, Hotels, Retail Locations and Casino Resorts — First commercially available surface computer from Microsoft breaks down barriers and provides effortless interaction with information using touch, natural gestures and physical objects.


Microsoft hopes 'Milan' table PC has magic touch — At first glance, Microsoft's secret project looks like a 2007 version of the sit-down arcade game Ms. Pac Man. Only if this machine were running the game, you could just take your finger and flick away any monsters chasing the heroine.

Ahh, the PlayTable, er Surface Computing, how it works... Andy Wilson. Remember the guy I introduced you to at Microsoft Research? — Funny, he was at the Maker Faire last weekend talking to everyone and showing off his latest thing. He builds demos for Bill Gates and he was the one who first showed me the PlayTable.

Microsoft Surface Hits The Ground Running
Discussion:
GracefulFlavor

Microsoft Surface - surface and gesture based computing lands
Discussion:
creativebits

CBS to buy social network — It is expected to pay $280 million for the Last.fm site, which caters to music fans. — CBS Corp. is buying a popular social-networking website organized around musical tastes for $280 million, combining a traditional broadcast giant with an early leader in online radio.
Discussion:
HipMojo.com, The Social Web, Mashable!, Hear 2.0, Rev2.org, The Webpreneur, StartupSquad.com and rexduffdixon.com
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Music site Last.fm bought by CBS — Social music site Last.fm has been bought by US media giant CBS Corporation for $280m (£140m), the largest-ever UK Web 2.0 acquisition. — The online network was founded in the UK five years ago and it now has more than 15 million active users.

Apple Announces iTunes U on the iTunes Store — Free Content From Top Universities Now Available — Apple® today announced the launch of iTunes® U, a dedicated area within the iTunes Store (www.itunes.com) featuring free content such as course lectures, language lessons …
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Apple Launches iTunes Plus — Higher Quality DRM-Free Tracks Now Available on the iTunes Store Worldwide — Apple® today launched iTunes® Plus—DRM-free music tracks featuring high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings …
Discussion:
Engadget


The Shape of Computers to Come? — The Latest Products Seek — To Explore New Forms, Uses — It's time for computer designers to think outside the box. From Microsoft Corp. to Silicon Valley start-ups, technology companies are introducing computers with fundamentally new forms.
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BloggingStocks
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Microsoft Unveils New Surface Computer
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Michael Gartenberg

LiveScribe lets the paper do the talking, and thinking
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Gizmodo


Palm Foleo and Linux OS for summer is what Hawkins is announcing at D? — Woops! Looks like someone was trigger-happy at Palm and shot out the press release for tomorrow's announcement a little too soon! Apparently what Jeff Hawkins is going to announce in the morning at D is called the Palm Foleo …
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Palm to Announce New Mobile Device on May 30 — News Media, Industry and Financial Analysts Invited to Live Video Webcast — SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 29, 2007 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Jeff Hawkins, founder of Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq:PALM), will host a live video webcast on Wed., May 30, to describe a new category of mobile device.
Discussion:
paidContent.org, Computerworld Blogs blogs, Gadgets on the Go, Engadget, BloggingStocks and PalmAddicts

DEATH OF JOURNALISM - BLAME GOOGLE? NO. ASK GOOGLE TO LEAD? YES. — Thanks to commentor Kimo for pointing me to this SF Gate Op Ed, written by Neil Henry, a former colleague at the Graduate School of Journalism. — Snip: … I can't disagree more with what Neil is saying in this first part …
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Howto: Google Maps Street View outside US — Google is making excessive use of their GeoIP database these days to test new features in a limited area of their choice. Now they decided to only let users from the US use the street view option in Google Maps.
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Adobe's ColdFusion warms to .Net — (InfoWorld) - Adobe's ColdFusion software for building Internet applications and Web sites is being improved with Microsoft .Net support, enabling .Net objects to be invoked from within the ColdFusion language. — A public beta of ColdFusion 8, accessible here, is to be offered on Wednesday.


Square Enix Seeking Final Fantasy IV Vocalist — For the Nintendo DS remake of Final Fantasy IV, Square Enix maestro Nobuo Uematsu is reworking the game's memorable "Theme of Love" into a vocal arrangement. But they haven't yet signed a singer — that's where you come in.