Dell has unveiled their vision of the workspace of the future. Along with a large monitor in front of the user, an equally large touchscreen takes the places of where a desk would be; effectively having a large Wacom that doubles as a table.
The Dell Smart Desk is a concept that is mainly targeted at digital artists, engineers, architects, and scientific analysts that could take full advantage of the large horizontal touchscreen that doubles as a work desk. This includes utilising the bottom touchscreen as an input, and as a second source of information to be displayed.
In the product video, the Dell Smart Desk showcased typing on an on-screen keyboard. We’re not sure if this will catch on, as it is essentially tapping your fingers repeatedly on a hard surface; something that would probably result in sore fingers after a long period of typing.
Other than a stylus, a circular device of some sort is also used to interact with the bottom touchscreen in various ways. It can be used to select the colour palette that you would like to use, or even as a compass in Google Maps to navigate the Street View. This circular device could be a promising concept for the future.
While the Dell Smart Desk is an interesting concept, we have seen this before with the Microsoft Pixelsense. The device, previously known as the original Microsoft Surface, can detect objects placed on its touchscreen based on shape and size, and for now, we have no idea if the Smart Desk could function in the same way.
Only time will tell if the Dell Smart Desk concept will catch on to become a product that could be mass-produced for general consumers. Watch the video below to see the Dell Smart Desk in action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2kiIqkQZVQ
(Source: Dell)
