This week I was invited to a presentation of the future of Microsoft’s technologies by Robbie Bach, President of Entertainment and Devices. The main focus of the evening was the Microsoft Surface technology, with a side order of Natal gestural interfaces.

The Surface is really a touch screen, table-top, interface without the grid-lock feature. Items can be dragged around freely and the vibe is very much that of a living room table where you can call up images, interactive applications, games and any form of digital content to interact with it and generally feel like you have the technology of Minority Report with an interface of Better Homes and Gardens.

One of the questions from the audience was about the durability of the Surface…surface. Spilt drinks, a ding here, a knock there, how would it shape up? Robbie leapt up onto the Surface table to show its durability, and that it could also presumably be used as stepladder.

The table itself is packed full of technology and looks uncannily like the original table-top Pacman that I used to play in bars and until recently had in my living room. Robbie talked about how the first versions of the Surface would not be home devices, but be in shops, travel agents and cafes. It will have to be a tough piece of kit to withstand industrial usage, and I am not convinced that people will use it as information device to research travel plans if someone develops multiplayer games for it.

The problem with Surface I believe is that it simply took too long to develop. Robbie mentioned that the R&D for this project had taken around a decade. Minority Report came out in 2002. Had this product launched then, it would have been a barn-stormer worldwide, but touch screen interfaces like the iPhone have been released into small form-factor products and this makes the surface feel just a little like a great product with the wrong timing.

If I were in Robbie’s shoes, I would be climbing onto the Surface to use it as a stepladder to Project Natal. This is where the game changes.

Here at The Project Factory, we are zealots for 3D interfaces and have just soft-launched the Beta of our new Friend Cube project that shows your Facebook friends in a series of 3D cubes. At the moment our problem is that we are still constrained by the mouse and keyboard – instruments that were designed for a 2D screen. With Natal, this constraint is vaporized.

Natal is the new games platform from Microsoft, but the revolution is in the interface. Sensors can identify numerous points on the body and track that movement. Presumably the platform will be able to analyze my tennis serve as well as play tennis, suggest corrections to my golf swing (there will be many) as well as play golf, and know whether I am holding a Pilates position correctly. And that’s just the sport. The promo videos show driving, photo management and all manner of other activities.

However what really interests me here is that the platform for a new interface language has been developed. As with the pinch/zoom on the iPhone, so we will start to see a new set of gestural conventions created as these become our primary form of navigation with the Natal. ‘Talk to the hand’ ‘Whatever’ and the popularity of numerous other more direct finger gestures will be able to be recognize by the Natal, and equally I am sure that numerous movements that will be coded into Natal projects will start to enter our daily physical lexicon.

Robbie Bach introduced the Natal by foretelling the end of the remote control device. His point is well made. Natal is to remote controls what PVRs are for video recorders. A simpler interface that allows us to interact more easily. Beyond that, this is a platform which will change the way we interact with the lifestyle technology in our homes. For those of you who may be attending MIPTV in Cannes this April, I will be presenting on The Internet in 3D and will be announcing two products and initiatives that will serve as the Chapter Two of this posting.