Microsoft Encourages 'Touching' at New Vegas iBar

Published: June 18, 2008

by Alex Woodie

What do you get when you combine "the best of technology with the best of Vegas nightlife"? If you said "a 30-foot-tall, fire-breathing robotic version of David Copperfield," you're wrong. The correct answer is Microsoft Surface, the next-generation touch-screen display that's like an Apple iPod, only bigger. Last week, Microsoft announced that Harrah's has installed the first 30-inch Touch devices at its Rio casino, in a new pub called iBar.

Microsoft introduced Surface to great fanfare at the 2007 TechEd conference, at about the same time consumers were thrilling over the new touch screen capabilities of Apple's iPhone. Like the iPhone, Microsoft Touch is also a touch screen device, but differs from the iPod in that it's basically a 30-inch LCD screen lying on its side, and you can use it with other people at the same time. Also, it doesn't fit in your pocket (unless you're a 30-foot-tall, fire-breathing version of David Copperfield).

Harrah's signed on as one of Microsoft's early partners for testing the new Microsoft Touch devices, along with Starwood Hotels, AT&T, and T-Mobile. Initially, the casino operator wanted to use Touch as a "virtual concierge" to help casino-goers select concerts and restaurants.

That's one of the uses that Microsoft Touch is getting at the Rio casino's new iBar, where Harrah's has installed several of the Surface displays. It's also installed several other applications and games, including a video and chat application that encourages users to "flirt Vegas style," a cocktail-mixing application for "mixologists," as well as bowling, pinball, and musical-memory video games.

The new Touch displays will definitely be a novelty, a break from the norm that one expects of Sin City. But the question remains whether Touch makes it into the mainstream, as the iPhone most certainly has.

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