CES madness begins with a multitouch puzzle

As I perused Techmeme over the last few days, I noticed that Consumer Electronics Show announcements are already coming fast and furious. Nearly every consumer electronics company on the planet is announcing a new GPS navigator, Panasonic is prepping a new 150-inch plasma display (because the 103-inch one it introduced last year wasn't big enough), and so on. And gadget gurus like Wired.com, Engadget, and Gizmodo have already started their CES coverage.

But two products that really caught my eye were the new 52- and 84-inch multi-touch LCD displays that LG is introducing. These are liquid crystal displays with infrared detectors built into them, allowing them to be used in nearly any place or orientation that a traditional monitor might be used. LG notes that the displays are largely targeted at commercial applications. And that poses a question in my mind about another product that was much touted in 2007 but hasn't actually been deployed yet:

With multi-touch flat panels on the market, why would any commercial customer want to deploy a multi-touch system that only works horizontally, is more than a foot deep, and comes from a vendor with no track record in displays or commercial hardware products?

All I can say is that it's going to be a very interesting year for display products incorporating new user interaction ideas.

Technorati Tags: CES, Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft, Surface computing