Microsoft's Milan Multi-touch Tabletop PC

Microsoft recently hit the news circuit with an announcement of a new class of devices that feature touchscreen interfaces that allow for multiple simultaneous touchpoints. The project is called Microsoft Surface. Here's the ZDNet story on it. And here's a nice video of the system.

I have been following the development of multi-touch display technology for a few years. I ran into the technology at SIGGRAPH a few years ago and each year have seen major advances. The project was based at NYU and was recently spun off into a private company called Perceptive Pixel. The NYU software ran on Linux (I seem to remember).

I wonder if they will be able to get their systems to consumers at a reasonable price sooner than Microsoft. Either way, I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on one of these things.