Last Sunday's NY Times contained an article about multi-touch displays. "Turning Point for Touch Screens", which talks about iPhones, Dells' new Latitude and interviews the CEO of WACOM, who put the tablet in tabletpc.

But the only mention of Microsoft was when talking about the lack of software:

That could change if Microsoft delivers on multitouch technology that it has demonstrated and says will be in Windows 7, the next version of Windows, due in 2010. Such a move could galvanize software developers. Microsoft might also be able to spearhead a software standard that makes it easier for touch-enabled applications to work on the myriad kinds of touch technology.

Granted it's not a household item, but I was surprised that not one word was mentioned about Surface computing. This is multi-touch on a big scale with the benefits of WPF and oh so much more behind it. And it's a pretty nice prototype for laptops. Although it's more globally comprehended if I describe a Surface as a giant iPhone, I prefer to refer to iPhone as a mini-Surface.

The Surface computing team already has an SDK - the beginnings of that software standard?  Here is the Surface team's blog if you are interested in the development side.