tempest in a teacup

Bill Gates and He Who Flings Chairs apparently just gave a brief demo of some of the new features that will be in the successor to Windows Vista.
Click here for a summary at Engadget.

Apparently the biggest two things are that:

1. Microsoft has borrowed the OS X dock (or something similar) for Windows 7 and
2. Multi-touch (based on their upcoming Surface technology) apparently plays a significant role in the OS

That’s right - multi-touch, aka that technology which the iPhone brought to the mainstream last year. A desktop OS driven by multi-touch definitely sounds interesting, but it’ll require dedicated hardware. Still, Surface is probably the most interesting thing that’s come out of Microsoft in a long time, so I’m genuinely curious as to how they’ll integrate it into a standard desktop OS. In addition, I doubt this will supplant mice and keyboards as input devices - I’m not sure I want to be typing my e-mail by tapping on a touch screen, or aiming my rockets with touch gestures.

Still - interesting developments, worth keeping an eye on.