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Microsoft’s Hardware, Round 2: Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2

arstechnica.com

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Re: Microsoft’s Hardware, Round 2: Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2

#181

Post by chad_oliver »

mietek wrote: post #157
mikevm wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it'd be particularly efficient. I need to be able to write proofs (which include lots of math symbols) and draw diagrams very quickly. I've seen people do it with digitizers, but the results ends up being rather poor. Pen & paper still looks best.

Is there a usable handwriting recognizer which can deal with heavy math notation?

I came across MyScript yesterday, and have been very impressed. It's an SDK which can recognize handwritten math (among other things). It has correctly recognized everything I've thrown at it so far, even though I'm using a mouse so my writing's pretty crappy.

I'm seriously considering trying to build something with the API. I'm not sure what; I just want to play with the cool technology. Perhaps an app which gives you an algebra question, then uses math recognition to interpret your working. It could then see that you made a mistake on step three (for example).

Perhaps I've just late to the party, but I'm still astounded that this is possible.

You can check out a demo here: http://webdemo.visionobjects.com/home.html#equation

Re: Microsoft’s Hardware, Round 2: Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2

#182

Post by greeneggs »

mikevm wrote: post #123
Livven wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI with OneNote and a digitizer stylus as the Surface Pro comes with you can just write your notes on the screen. OneNote will recognize the handwriting and allow you to search through it etc. Sorry if you already know that, from the way your comment is phrased it looks like you don't so I thought I'd throw it out.

I don't think it'd be particularly efficient. I need to be able to write proofs (which include lots of math symbols) and draw diagrams very quickly. I've seen people do it with digitizers, but the results ends up being rather poor. Pen & paper still looks best.

The Surface Pro, with OneNote, works extremely well for this, more efficient than paper. OneNote is buggy and crashes, and the Surface is sometimes slow---so it isn't perfect---but it is still better than paper. High-quality pen input (except at the screen edges), different colors, copy-paste and undo.

For reading pdfs, the widescreen is annoying and claustrophobic, and I haven't found any Windows PDF reader that is comparable to Apple's Preview application. Occasionally I've "printed" pdfs to OneNote, to read and edit them there, but this doesn't work great. (You can't drag pdfs into OneNote because Windows and pdfs barely work together at all.)

Re: Microsoft’s Hardware, Round 2: Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2

#184

Post by tammer »

Todd wrote: post #86
enko wrote: post #24

Dear Microsoft: Out of ARM and x86, choose one. Just choose one. For the love of god, choose ONE. Can you imagine Apple, or anyone else, deliberately releasing two different tablets, with the same name, which can not run each others' software? It is inconceivable, and for good reason. MS cannot make decisions. That's what will kill them, long term. Just choose one!!

Why does Apple get a pass on this? They have just taken the alternative approach of fracturing their OS and hardware. It's natural because of where they started (iPod -> iPhone -> iPad), so this isn't a criticism. As a consequence, this is one area where MS is ahead of Apple (even if MS is having difficulties reconciling the tablet vs. desktop experience). MS has touch on the desktop. When is Apple going to have touc…

  >When is Apple going to have touch on Mac Books?
I find using a Magic Trackpad with a desktop Mac to be a wonderful experience. After working in a Linux/Windows world for a while, I was surprised at how quickly I stopped relying on hotkeys in favor of gestures. I'd say any Apple computer running 10.7 or later is actually built for 'touch'.

I always thought features like 'Launchpad' were useless for those able to type, but they feel more intuitive once you've practiced the gestures. Apple trackpads allow me to directly manipulate content while retaining the cursor accuracy needed for complex interfaces. I'll be surprised if Apple adds capacitive touch to their laptop screens.

Re: Microsoft’s Hardware, Round 2: Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2

#185

Post by moron4hire »

There are some problems with comparing a Windows Surface Pro tablet to an iPad. The availability of programs is such that you're not going to use the iPad for content creation, and you're probably not going to use the Surface for gaming. The Surface is not a pick-up-and-go sort of device.

It's a laptop with a mutli-touch display.

I'm building a program right now for Windows 8, on Dell hardware[1]. I've gotten quite used to the OS by now, and as long as you have a touch display, it doesn't really deserve the criticism I've read. I remember hearing the same thing about Windows XP and Windows Vista and Windows 7.

The thing that I like the most about using Windows 8 is that all of my software just, like, works. A little bit of that is luck: if I had written any programs that had heavy use of keyboard shortcuts, it wouldn't work without a blutooth keyboard. If I had written any programs that expected the screen to never resize, that too would break. But those are pretty bad programming habits to begin with. My programs don't look great, but that is a temporary problem.

And I can program for it with the same tools that I'm using for Windows 7 (hell, I can program on it). I don't have to wait for someone to make a something-to-something-else translator to use my favorite language to write programs like I do on iOS or Android. I don't have to wait for someone to make a decent text editor on iOS or Android. I don't have to wait for someone to write decent source control software for iOS or Android. I have it all, already. I can do whatever I want.

Hell, if I want to install Linux on the thing, I could. Of course, it's probably not going to play nicely with the touch screen, but that is a different issue. The Surface Pro is just a PC.

[1] The Dell hardware isn't great, but it has a regular, ol', USB port on it, which makes it amazing. I've played with the Surface Pro at a Staples and found it to be better than this Dell device in every way.

Re: Microsoft’s Hardware, Round 2: Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2

#187

Post by celerity »

mikevm wrote: post #60
gum_ina_package wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a college student studying engineering. I can say that replacing my laptop with my Surface Pro has been amazing. I'm virtually 100% paperless, with all my notes being taken with OneNote (seriously amazing!) and textbooks saved as PDFs. It's also awesome that the Pro has enough power for me to do real dev work on it. So make the switch! You won't be disappointed!

I'm a student also, but I've been using the iPad for this. I don't take any notes on the iPad itself because the courses I need to take notes on are mathematical, so I simply write on paper and then when I come back home I scan it and append the scans to an evergrowing PDF file that is synced to my iPad. I'm looking for a replacement for my iPad 2, but I can't settle on anything because all the non-iPad tablets have…

Your problem is that you have an iPad 2. If you use a retina iPad, you will be able to read a PDF in landscape if you can read a book. The screen simply becomes almost as good as print.

I've read many math papers and books this way.

Re: Microsoft’s Hardware, Round 2: Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2

#188

Post by overgryphon »

tammer wrote: post #184
Todd wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does Apple get a pass on this? They have just taken the alternative approach of fracturing their OS and hardware. It's natural because of where they started (iPod -> iPhone -> iPad), so this isn't a criticism. As a consequence, this is one area where MS is ahead of Apple (even if MS is having difficulties reconciling the tablet vs. desktop experience). MS has touch on the desktop. When is Apple going to have touc…

>When is Apple going to have touch on Mac Books? I find using a Magic Trackpad with a desktop Mac to be a wonderful experience. After working in a Linux/Windows world for a while, I was surprised at how quickly I stopped relying on hotkeys in favor of gestures. I'd say any Apple computer running 10.7 or later is actually built for 'touch'. I always thought features like 'Launchpad' were useless for those able to type…

If you have a chance you should try out a touchscreen laptop some time. It is a much more compelling experience then gestures on a trackpad.

Re: Microsoft’s Hardware, Round 2: Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2

#189

Post by celerity »

rlu wrote: post #126
__abc wrote: post #40

Who's the guying posing in the photo's? He looks miserable.

His name is Panos Panay and he's VP of Surface. I agree he isn't very photogenic but if you actually watch him present....it's a whole different story. You can probably find his part of the Surface 1 announcement on youtube and I'm sure the one today will be put up later.

I came away from today's presentation thinking that he was an unusually bad presenter. IMHO he failed to explain why the Surface Pro 2 was better at the things he was claiming it was better at, didn't give concrete details on basic specifications (saying "25% better battery life" is useless unless you know what his supposed base is), and made too many lame jokes.

Re: Microsoft’s Hardware, Round 2: Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2

#190

Post by SimonPStevens »

There is a simple change Microsoft need to make to the Surface RT to make it viable.

Fix app compatibility.

Start by removing the artificial restriction on desktop apps. Currently desktop apps are restricted to those signed by Microsoft. If they were to remove this restriction there's a whole load of apps that could be recompiled to target ARM and work on the RT desktop. Companies and open source devs would be far more willing to spend a small amount of time porting existing code bases to ARM than re-writing whole apps for 'Metro style'.

On top of that, Microsoft already have a platform compatibility layer in .Net. And they clearly already have a ARM version of the .Net runtime as you can build Metro apps targeting .Net. It seems absolutely crazy that they don't make use of this already existing compatibility layer that could allow all existing .Net apps to run on RT desktop without change. This would make the surface RT a far more interesting proposition for companies looking to deploy their internal homegrown enterprise apps to windows tablets.

This change would re-position the RT from it's current state as a underwhelming curiosity who's main competitor is IPads and Android tablets which have a wider range of apps (and are significantly cheaper in the case of some Android brands) to a true low-mid end laptop alternative with decent app support at a similar price point. The Surface pro stays as it is as a high end laptop alternative.

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