AT&T Engages Customers In Interactive Shopping With 'Surface'

AT&T launched on Thursday at its Experience Store in San Bruno the latest creation in terms of innovation and customer experience - Microsoft Surface, which offers the possibility to explore and interact with devices by using the sense of touch.

The company unveiled earlier this month the idea of creating an interactive and fun way of putting people in control of their experiences with technology. The San Bruno store customers will be the first to benefit from the Surface technology, together with four other locations for now, in New York City, Atlanta, San Antonio and San Francisco, but AT&T plans to expand the technology to all its stores nationwide.

The 30 inch table-like display offers a new sense of exploring devices and content by using touch, gestures of placement of devices on Microsoft Surface. “In essence, it’s a surface come to life for exploring, sharing, creating, buying and much more,” Microsoft said. The two companies are planning to collaborate even more and expand the capabilities of Microsoft Surface in the future.

Surface features the ability to recognize physical objects that have identification tags similar to bar codes. This means that when a customer simply sets a wine glass on the surface of a table, a restaurant could provide them with information about the wine they’re ordering, pictures of the vineyard it came from and suggested food pairings tailored to that evening’s menu. The experience could become completely immersive, letting users access information on the wine-growing region and even look at recommended hotels and plan a trip without leaving the table.

Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO of AT&T mobility, said in a statement at the beginning of April: “We are thrilled to bring this groundbreaking new technology to our stores so we can introduce customers to their mobile worlds in a very personal and easy way. We look forward to working with Microsoft to continue developing new ways for our customers to learn about the ever-growing lineup of mobile devices and applications.”