Microsoft Corp. has announced that it will exhibit its coffee-table-shaped “surface computer” at Wall Street Journal’s “D: All Things Digital” conference on Wednesday. The ideology behind this innovation is to replace mouse and keyboard by more natural interaction using voice, pen and touch. Microsoft Surface has a 30-inch display under a hard-plastic tabletop. You can touch and move objects on screen. It can help you place your order from the carte du jour in a restaurant.

Interesting to know, Microsoft Surface can interact with the devices placed in its surface. The cell phone users will be benefited by getting access to latest ringtones, or change payment plans by placing their handsets on in-store displays. It will run the Windows Vista operating system.

“We see this as a multibillion dollar category, and we envision a time when surface computing technologies will be pervasive, from tabletops and counters to the hallway mirror,” Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said in a statement. The targeted customers would initially be corporate customers.

Company aims at deploying the first units in November in Sheraton hotels, Harrah’s casinos, T-Mobile stores, and restaurants. Currently it will be sold at a price ranging from $5,000 and $10,000 each but they are saying that they will try to bring prices down to consumer levels in three to five years and introduce various shapes and forms.