See Microsoft's Multi-Touch Spherical Display in Action

This week at Microsoft's Research Faculty Summit, the company is showing off Sphere, an orb-shaped multi-user touch sensitive display. The device is only a prototype at the moment, but can already use a variety of applications including picture and video display, an interactive map of the world, finger painting, and omni-directional video conferencing.

The prototype is based on Global Imagination's Magic Planet video device, with Microsoft adding its own software and touch capability. According to a member of Microsoft's research team, Hrvoje Benko, the Sphere is designed so that users have access to the full 360 degrees of the device and that images do not appear distorted on the curved surface. The video above was taken for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's blog and gives you a sense of the Sphere's cool factor.

Touch sensitive technology is actually fairly old and has been used in ATMs and Palm devices for years, but touch sensitive displays have become more and more popular for home and business devices recently.

The iPod Touch and iPhone have taken the tech world by storm, former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates has been, and still is, a champion for the tablet PC and Microsoft's table-top touch sensitive display Surface debuted last year and has recently been spotted in use in Las Vegas.

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