UIST 2008 - Multitouch sphere

I read the UIST 2008 paper over creating a multitouch sphere. Overall it was a pretty cool project. They used a projector to project the image from below the sphere and used an infrared camera to pick up touch points. However the idea of the design itself has many flaws. You lose a lot of screen space from it being located on a part of the sphere that isn't usable (like near the bottom). You deal with heavy image distortion (addressed slightly with the photo application). You're apps have to be written specifically for the sphere. And it's fairly expensive to make. The sphere seems somewhat gimmicky and would be fun to play around on, but for most work it would be inefficient and unnecessary. This could possibly be used in a specialized situations, but for the most part it's overall just a fun and expensive toy to play pong on.