If you’ve seen Quantum of Solace the recent James Bond film, the more geeky amongst us would have noticed M playing with a rather neat bit of kit, a space-age computer built into her desk  and powered by hand gestures and touch alone. She was casually flicking images of suspects electronically across the desk to her underlings who were drilling down into data with nothing but taps and prods of their fingers.

Presuming this to be just Hollywood trickery I was astounded to find out that it’s real, it’s called Microsoft Surface and costs about 10 grand for the table and developer license. Demos and prototypes for it are springing up all around us and you can go to Barclays ‘branch of the future’ at Piccadilly Circus and just have a play. I’m impressed.

In truth, I found the Barclays application worked well, the interface feels impressively natural to use but this app somehow lacked a little of the Wow! factor that I thought it might have.

It’s apparent to me that a table is indeed a natural environment for a financial adviser talking to his/her clients and that this kind of technology ought to really fit neatly into that space. There’s space for drinks to sit around the edge of the table and if it’s really smart the table can order the next round for you.

Accenture (Avanade) obviously think the same, have a look at the following …
.

I’m intrigued and will certainly be investigating further. A certain CBoxx product could be a great fit for an adventurous client …