The TaskGallery is a project by Microsoft Research to design a 3D desktop for Microsoft Windows and other GUI environments. TaskGallery completely eliminates the idea of a desktop, taskbar and other UI elements we have come to know and love. Instead, the TaskGallery uses the metaphor of various rooms, with pictures hanging on the wall that represent the various tasks running on the computer. At the rear end of the room is the stage, which holds a special platform containing the task that currently has focus. Microsoft currently has an experimental version of this technology running on a specially modified version of Windows 2000. TaskGallery is rumored to be the basis of the new user interface in Windows Blackcomb, the successor to Windows XP.
Microsoft beleives that the current desktop metaphor has outlived its usefullness, and the new 3D user interface is better able to represent the way a user really uses their computer, in that users will be able to arrange windows in a fassion that more naturally relates to the real world.