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Microsoft working on next-generation Surface

Touchscreen computer will allow overlaid images

Despite only just being made available in the UK, Microsoft is working on a second generation of its Surface touchscreen computer.

Surface doesn't have a mouse or a keyboard, instead users manipulate applications and items such as photos by tapping and dragging. Photos can be expanded using one's fingertips. Surface uses cameras to identify objects and sense hand gestures.

Joe Olsen, a developer at Phenomblue, which creates apps for the computer, said the second generation device was still in the development stage.

"They haven't even got to point where they are going to commercialise," he said.

Olsen said he was told that it would be "two to three years before anything would happen".

It is thought the next-generation Surface will be called Second Light and will feature a second projector that will allow images to be projected onto a layer above the Surface's screen, so images can be overlaid. Second Light is likely to feature infrared sensors that will identify gestures and hand movements allowing users to control the computer without even touching it.

Microsoft refused to comment on a release date for the second-generation Surface.

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See also: Microsoft targets education with Surface computer

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