I'm impressed. Good looking hardware, and you can do actual work on it. I hope it's priced competitively too.
Microsoft Introduces New "Surface" Tablet
161–170 of 697 posts
Re: Microsoft Introduces New "Surface" Tablet
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
That Surface, the table thing, was based on multiple IR cameras tracking finger interactions. It was never miniaturizable to a portable device. Not good tech, wrong market -- totally different tech, niche market. (also it debuted 5 months after the original iPhone, for whatever that's worth)
I believe the current round of e-readers actually use IR-based touch sensors. Still wouldn't compete on a phone for marketing reasons (thanks to the need for a sunken-in screen), but definitely shrinkable.
They do! But those IR touch screens are actually different technology again from the quite literally cameras that the Surface used.
IR touch screens like the ones the Sony reader and Kindle use have been around for ages in POS machines and the like.
On the other hand the Surface (table) was using computer vision algorithms on realtime near-IR images of the table surface to recognize multiple touches and gestures.
Re: Microsoft Introduces New "Surface" Tablet
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean a compact music player with a 2.5" HDD, room for 5GB of music, with 20 minutes of skip protection, a FireWire port for 50MB per second transfer, a click wheel for navigation, and a user friendly interface? Yes, that was pretty novel in 2002.
Yes, Apple is more about "making the first one that doesn't suck" than "making the first one".
The first ipod kinda sucked.
Re: Microsoft Introduces New "Surface" Tablet
#164Just noticed from the Win8Pro version, "Pen with Palm Block" a nice innovation Apple hasn't bothered with yet. Question I want to know is, "can you develop" applications for the tablet, on the tablet?
The answer has to be yes, at least for the intel version. It runs full Windows 8 Pro on an x64 cpu. There's no reason you won't be able to fire up Visual Studio on that sucker (other than perhaps performance considerations).
beaut, I see the distinction b/w RT & 8 Pro here ~ http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/18/microsoft-surface-tablets...
Re: Microsoft Introduces New "Surface" Tablet
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pen+touch+type seems like a great idea. It is something no other manufacturer has tried to do. I think the devil will be in the details, but this sure is interesting, because Apple's strategy is "people should buy multiple devices-- iPad, Macbook Air, Mac Pro...". MSFT wants one device that is a lot more versatile.
Pen+touch+type seems like a great idea. It is something no other manufacturer has tried to do. Apple Newton MessagePad, 1993. It had a stylus, handwriting recognition, you could use it with just your fingertips, and you could connect an external keyboard. http://www.flickr.com/photos/atow/4314242537/ That was almost twenty years a go. Newton was a very expensive experiment for Apple, and they have learned the hard wa…
On the other hand, nearly ever doctor or professional I've seen using a tablet was using a Thinkpad with a pen rather than an iPad with their finger. Screwing around with iTunes and doing work are two completely separate use cases, and it seems that Microsoft is more interested in "the Enterprise" than Apple is. So with that in mind, they're trying to accommodate all use cases.
(I did have one doctor that insisted on using an iPad. It took him forever to type notes to the point of it being extremely irritating. Transcribe your notes later!)
Re: Microsoft Introduces New "Surface" Tablet
#166Re: Microsoft Introduces New "Surface" Tablet
#167Xbox Live integration is still the trojan horse on this device.
Re: Microsoft Introduces New "Surface" Tablet
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pen+touch+type seems like a great idea. It is something no other manufacturer has tried to do. I think the devil will be in the details, but this sure is interesting, because Apple's strategy is "people should buy multiple devices-- iPad, Macbook Air, Mac Pro...". MSFT wants one device that is a lot more versatile.
Pen+touch+type seems like a great idea. It is something no other manufacturer has tried to do. Apple Newton MessagePad, 1993. It had a stylus, handwriting recognition, you could use it with just your fingertips, and you could connect an external keyboard. http://www.flickr.com/photos/atow/4314242537/ That was almost twenty years a go. Newton was a very expensive experiment for Apple, and they have learned the hard wa…
The lesson they may have learned was 1993 was not the right time to launch a tablet. The iPad wasn't the first swipe at a tablet, either.
Re: Microsoft Introduces New "Surface" Tablet
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what I can recall, that's how many tech product launches go. Sometimes you get "3rd quarter" estimates, but I don't recall too many vendors outside of Apple giving exact shipping dates.
I understand that. All the cool tech/UI aside, most of the people want to know price and availability. When iPhone was first released, it launched with $299. Price alone created so much buzz like "all this awesome things at just $299, I'm getting one". Now I'm definitely interested in this product but if they price it $1000 I may or may not buy. Why not declare price right away? I'm sure they have nailed down the pri…
That's factually untrue. The iPhone launched at $499/$599 for 4gb/8gb models, and then a few months later had the 4gb discontinued and the 8gb dropped to $399, arguably due in no small part to people complaining how expensive it was.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_iPhone#U.S._rele...]
Re: Microsoft Introduces New "Surface" Tablet
#170So they're not just going after the iPad, they're also going after the MacBook Air: The Intel version + Touch Cover was repeatedly shown with the regular desktop and apps on it, and generally spun as a sort of light laptop. Ambitious, and finally makes sense of their Metro/desktop combo OS strategy to a degree. The hardware to go along with it was a missing puzzle piece, and I guess shows just how important it can be…
Does the color of the windows and background changes to the color of the keyboard as soon as we attach it ? reply
Yes, they showed it on the demo it seems.