This entry is part of a small series of entries based on the recent XMediaLab conference in Sydney called "Global Media Cultures'.  Each conference speaker presented individually and I have decided to group them according to a common ground. 

Human touch adds a new dimension to the way we interact with technology - take the iPhone as an example.  These two figures, August de los Reyes (Principal Design Director of Microsoft Surface) and interactive media artist Lynette Wallworth may seem to be worlds apart but they both share a common ground: the suspension of belief between the digital and the physical.

August ensures that Microsoft Surface, this multi-touch tabletop computer, follows the taxonomy of core ideas in developing a NUI (Natural User Interface) by focusing on:

• Objects instead of text/pictures
• Intuition instead of recall/recognition
• Contextual rather than directed/exploratory
• Fast few rather than high-low/double medium
• Unmediated rather than disconnected/indirect

The core philosophy is to look at the past events, determine patterns and to predict what happens.

On the same subject matter, the relationship of human touch and technology, is Lynette Wallworth's interactive media installations that immerses the audience with her works.  Her work, "Hold: Vessel 1 and 2" was a piece exploring how individuals react to holding an interesting object:

To experience Hold: Vessel I and 2, you're handed a translucent white bowl before entering a dark room with several bright beams shining down from the ceiling. You hold your bowl beneath the beams to "capture" the projected imagery, which is gleaned from visioning technology that records changes in marine environments as well as video of astronomical events (my photo doesn't do the imagery and colors justice, but it gives you an idea). As Wallworth said, bringing the tactile experience into the art seems to engender a strong, meditative focus.   Source

I have found a YouTube of someone's experience of Vessel that has been uploaded online:

The Studio at the Sydney Opera House was dimmed during her presentation which have intensified the audience's experience as she showed us Invisible By Night where a projection of a grieving woman responds to your proximity and touch and wipes the 'condensation' away.