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Recently I was one of the lucky few that were able to attend a blogger day put on by the team behind the Microsoft Surface. I have to say that initially I was not looking forward to the trip, don’t get me wrong the Surface seemed interesting enough, but the idea of flying cross country (from Florida to Washington) for a day was not all that exciting. However having said that, I am so glad I went and given the opportunity I would go back in a second.

The Surface, like I have already mentioned was interesting enough, but its still really a commercially designed product and not expected to be in the home for another 3 to 4 years. Which means that up till now we have really only heard about the Surface being used to help market phones in AT&T retail locations. Which, coincidentally if I were an AT&T salesperson I would start to worry, because let me tell you, aside from being 100% accurate with their sales pitch, the Surface is fun to play with, easy to use and certainly a lot nicer than dealing with a cranky, less than knowledgeable or pushy human. The Surface, as we have already mentioned did also recently launch in the Rio iBar at Harrah’s in Las Vegas and is able to show off the more fun side.

The blogger day actually consisted of two parts, the first was a nice casual evening meet and greet where we were able to hang out with some members of the Surface team, and a few Surface tables as well. The meeting was casual and fun, but really just touched the surface (pun intended) for what we had to look forward to on the following day.

The day of the actual event gave us so much information that at times it seemed like our heads were going to explode and it became hard to process. Ultimately the word that best seemed to describe the Surface was “wow” as it can do so many cool things it makes me wish I had one in my living room, right now. Seeing the Surface and witnessing what was being developed (in some cases in the developers spare time) was so exciting it was like “the future” and what we sometimes see with multi-touch computers on television was already here.

At the event we were able to get close-up and hands on with the software that is on those AT&T tables as well as the Rio iBar tables. In addition we were shown a photo viewing application that included a mix of virtual earth and geo-tagging, another photo application that mixed real world pictures with digital images that all could have attached tags when laid on the table, and many more cool applications. We were even able to see a little of how they test the Surface with a robot named Petey. The possibilities of what could be developed seemed endless and limitless.

Overall it seemed clear that this was just as fun and exciting for the team members as it was for us, and during one portion of the event we got to see just how that was true, first hand. At one point we were able to check out some of the early renditions of the Surface and they were all placed in a room together, almost like a showcase of just how far it had come, which was very cool for myself to see. However, it became even more apparent that it was not just us (the bloggers) that were excited, because as we all bounced around the room taking pictures, I looked over and saw Eric Havir, the Senior Marketing Manager taking pictures as well. The message became clear, this was exciting to work on.

So with all that, I have some great pictures and some video to bring to all of you loyal readers, but part because my camera is slow (I am still shooting on mini DV) and part because I want to build some suspense, my recap of the event will come in a few parts. To begin, lets begin as we did with the event, getting to see the latest introduction video from the Surface Team.

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