Earlier when I said Microsoft’s 3D Live Maps and Google’s Street View were a glimpse of the future and pretty cool, I had no idea that a few hours later both of those announcements would be blown out of the water. Now this is pretty damn cool.

Microsoft has just unveiled their “Surface Computing” platform. Their Channel 10 blog has a first look – which I can’t get to load – no matter though as Popular Mechanic’s video of it is simply awesome.

It literally is the exact same thing from Jeff Han’s video a few months ago, but fleshed out beyond the prototype stage to the point that we should begin to see these devices by the end of this year!

Now, I say in the title “Just-blow-the” Surface Computing because unless you have at least $5,000-$10,000 just burning a hole in your wallet, you won’t be seeing one of these bad boys on a consumer level at least until sometime next year and possibly later. But Microsoft is supposedly already lining up the big-boy clients and we should seeing these things in places like casinos within months.

Just please watch that Popular Mechanics video and let it play at least up until the point where the demonstrator takes a picture with his digital camera, places it on the surface computer, and instantly that picture appears on the table for him to manipulate. He then places a cellphone on the surface computer and simply glides the picture into it – transferred. Brilliant.

Later Jeff Han talks about surface computing on wallpaper. And I thought nothing would ever beat Willy Wonka’s lick-able wallpaper…

Scoble has more, as does CNET. Here’s Microsoft’s official release. This is going to be talked about for a long time coming…

Be sure to also check out Microsoft’s own presentation.

Naturally I wonder how Apple will respond – as in tomorrow – when Steve Jobs will be one of the main speakers at the All Things Digital Conference alongside Bill Gates. DRM-free iTunes tracks suddenly don’t feel big enough…

Who thinks it was just a coincidence that they announced this at midnight the night before before Gates and Jobs are going to be on stage together? Touche Microsoft. Touche.

Now you see, was that so tough? Create buzz-worthy products and the buzz does cometh…