Again to sum up, TechEd 2009 has brought us fresh headlines for Windows 7, Office 2010, and Windows Mobile 6.5. So, what else is worth talking about? How about the Microsoft Surface. The company quietly (sans press release) announced that Service Pack 1 for the super-duper coffee table has been released. Apparently the service pack is the result of feedback from more than 180 partners in 11 countries who are developing on the Microsoft Surface. SP1 is meant to make development on the platform faster and easier: the SDK supports development on any .NET framework and is optimized for WPF and XNA.

Surface can run multiple applications simultaneously, but only with SP1 is it easy to tell if an application in the background needs your attention, thanks to a small notification on the side. Surface is also now easier to set up since you can calibrate without needing to plug in an external display. SP1 gives users more visual feedback about where they've touched and where they should have touched to select a specific item. Also, where applicable, Surface will let the user know that he or she cannot zoom into a specific object by showing lines leading away from the object. Below is a quick list of features that have been added; I think the Microsoft Update one is the most important one (and it probably should have been there from the start):

Application Development: API enhancements, WFP library and menu controls, stress testing tool, and 128-big identity tag resources

New platform capabilities: Enabling users to quickly switch between applications using tagged object routing, as well as background service application support

Improved User Interface: Improved "Access Points," single application mode, touch/contact feedback and visualization

Localized end-user and administrative interface in available countries

New calibration guides removing need for external display during configuration

Microsoft Update integration

Microsoft Management Pack support

CrunchGear has a video (embedded below) that gives you a peek into what SP1 adds to the Surface. I can't promise the video will be as cool as the iPhone and Surface mashup, but it definitely helps with explaining some of the new features.

If you already own a Surface and you'd like SP1, you'll need an SP1 order form, which you can get by e-mailing the Microsoft Surface Business Desk with the subject heading "SP1 Upgrade Request" or by downloading the order form from the Microsoft Surface Community website.

At TechEd 2009, Microsoft also noted that although Windows 7 will only have two-finger gesture support and the first Windows phones will have single-figure gesture support, the company is looking to standardize touch gestures across its products. SP1 includes new and improved multi-touch controls that are coming later to .NET 4 and that will make it easier to create applications that run on both Surface and Windows 7. Brad Carpenter, general manager of the Surface SW Platform, explains the software giant's thinking:

There's lots of interest around multi-touch and NUI [Natural User interface] inside Microsoft and that's great, but making sure we have consistency is important. We are at the stage where we are internally driving to an agreement about what is the right set of gestures, but we have to think about this across devices. But a flick needs to be a flick needs to be a flick; the gesture - and the underlying response - should be the same. On one device it shouldn't take forever to get across the screen.

Getting the same touch gestures across all Microsoft platforms is very important if Redmond wants to be a key player in this type of computing. Currently it won't be very easy to achieve this because the hardware isn't readily available to the general market, but eventually one would hope that the software giant can achieve this goal. It would be nice to only learn one set of gestures and be able to use them on various devices.