Microsoft Surface. Now we are getting somewhere!

[Zythryn]

Now this looks like something I will stand out in front of Best Buy waiting for:)

Microsoft Surface.

News article at Microsoft Surface brings computing to the table.

 

A tabletop interface, no keyboard or mouse. I can see a lot of applications for this. Home not being the first one, but I gotta have it just for the 'cool' factor:hihi:

I am going to go start planning a spot for it right now:)

[sanctus]

Wow, science fiction which becomes reality! It really looks great.

[Queso]

How much does it cost??

 

:D

[Zythryn]

How much does it cost??

 

:D

 

I have a feeling it is one of those categories where if you have to ask, don't bother;)

First devices, from the looks of it, are set for MS's partners (Harrah's, Sheraton hotels and a couple of others).

If we get a home system in 2008 I will be happy. My main hope is that the home version will be a fully functional operating system. I would LOVE to play Risk on something like that:)

[CraigD]

How much does it cost??

I have a feeling it is one of those categories where if you have to ask, don't bother;)

I doubt the system show in the MS demos will be unusually expensive. I’m also skeptical that they’ll reach a wide market.

 

Technically, the MS Surface is a rear-projection TV with cameras that track the movement of objects placed on or near its surface, and, obviously, computer(s) programmed to make the two interact. According to its demonstrators and reviewers, it is NOT a touchscreen of any sort. I’m a bit suspicious of this claim, and think there’s a bit more two it than is being presented in the early, non-technical press. I suspect it’s using something like a grid of infrared beam emitters and detectors to sense actual contact with the table, and bright point illumination to “register” objects with the tracking camera – if you watch the demo videos, you’ll notice “flashes” when fingers and tools touch the surface.

 

In short, while cool, this box is not what I’d call “cutting edge”. I suspect there’s no component in it that’s not off-the-shelf, nor that an equivalent box couldn’t be built by a good hobbyist. My first impression of it is that it’s functionally a lot like a TV and a Sony EyeToy equipped PS2, except laid flat rather than the traditional upright arrangement.

 

The design has some distinct, severe drawbacks: It’s tracking sensitivity seems limited, which is typical of camera-based systems – notice that the demos show finger painting, but not fine line drawing with a stylus. I suspect it’s not capable of the latter.

 

A more imposing drawback is that the system is thick. You can’t sit at it and put you legs under it, like a normal table. As anyone who’s played an old “coffee table” cabinet video game (if you visit restaurants and bars, you can still find a lot of these, typically playing Ms PacMan or Galaxians for $0.25 a game), using such boxes with any enthusiasm usually entails some knee-banging and cursing. In terms or portability, even the small ones look like a dolly or two-man moving job – definitely not a zippered portfolio bag you could bring to business meetings or parties.

 

I’ve wanted every artificial surface I see to be a display and touch-sensitive device since I was a young kid in the 1960s. While the research, development, and marketing prescience of Microsoft is not to be lightly discounted, I don’t think their current approach is on the mark. IMHO, a successful “surface computer” will most likely be based either on the internal light sensing system seen in the Apple iPhone, or an advanced material using individual “touch pixels”. Moderately well-read Star Trek fans will recognize the latter as matching (roughly, and without terms like “polyduranide” and “optical nanoprocessor” the description Michael Okuda give of how all the panels in STTNG work. (For non-trekies, Okuda is the art & set guru largely responsible for the look of STTNG. Although the panels actually appearing the TV show are simply back-lit photographically produced plastic sheets, according to Okuda, they are intended to suggest that the displays change as needed, and are completely touch sensitive (and also capable of “scanning” nearby objects for everything from position to molecular composition, but that’s way over-the-top scifi talk).

 

On a cynical note, I sense in this latest “product launch” an effort by Microsoft to resurrect its effectively dead (other than in ads, how many Zunes have you seen in the hands of consumers?) Zune multimedia handheld. Note that several promotional videos prominently feature Zunes being placed on the Surface, and songs effortlessly dragged and dropped onto/into them. You can bet that, if the Surface is successful, MS won’t be straining itself to allow an iPod or any other Zune competitor to work on it.

[Zythryn]

Although I agree with many of your points Craig, I disagree with the 'flavor' of your post.

I find the use of this technology amazing and am surprised no one else has done it before on this type of application. I LOVE the resteraunt idea and capabilities. The ease and speed of paying your bill at the table is just one of those sci-fi ease of use things that makes life easier.

Now this is a bit of a stretch, as I don't know much about the OS of the 'surface', however I am hoping that a home version will come out in 2008, with a fully functional OS which can play games, run spreadsheets, and do all the media stuff we have seen in the demos.

I do agree with you that 'thickness' will be a big issue. If they can get it to a standard tabletop or desktop in which you can have your legs comfortably underneath they will be a lot more succesful.

I don't really care if the surface is called a touchscreen or something else as long as it reacts seamlessly as it appears to in the demonstrations;)

[CraigD]

Although I agree with many of your points Craig, I disagree with the 'flavor' of your post.

I didn’t mean to give my post a flavor suggesting I’m not delighted by the idea of tabletop where you can draw and scoot rendered objects around almost as if they physically existed, and affect it with objects that physically do exist. I want it on all my tabletops, floors, walls and ceilings!

 

I’ve a suspicion that Microsoft’s offering hasn’t quite met what’s required for it to be what I, or the market, want, and that the shortcoming is fundamental to the material and components of which the Surface is made – visible light cameras and projectors. Unless I’m missing a critical detail of its current design, I think it’s missing a critical piece necessary for it to have the input accuracy it needs.

 

Since my initial speculation that it might be based on a scheme of measuring changes in reflection of the back of the screen due to proximity or touch on the front, like the iPhone and Jeff Han’s experimental devices use, learning that the Surface is, like an EyeToy, actually camera based, and thinking about it a bit, I increasingly suspect that neither approach is quite what’s needed, but that the camera approach is closer. My main reason for suspecting this is that, while currently much better for pointing accuracy and size, none of the current touchscreens can, AFAIK, read coded IDs, as the Surface currently can.

 

The basic problem with existing camera position detector systems, like the Surface and the EyeToy, if their lack of precision. From my outsider’s perspective, this appears to be due to the difficulty of precisely locating a single reference point on the touching object in question – a finger, stylus, or what have you – with multiple cameras. My guess is that this is a hard problem, for which the solution may be: project a reference point on the object, and have cameras track that.

 

I’m just a spectator – of the armchair quarterback kind – but, like an armchair quarterback, even though my ideas may not be as good as the people doing the actual work, I likely have an accurate sense of when they are doing well, vs. being misguided. The “multitouch revolution”, of which devices like the iPhone and the Surface are sometimes termed part, is producing a lot of wonderful technology, but is also far from adequate, and frequently, if not misguided, not going where I’d like as fast as I’d like.

I find the use of this technology amazing and am surprised no one else has done it before on this type of application.

Me too, especially as the underlying technology has been around for a while, and been implemented on a small scale many times and places. Touchscreen-based help kiosks came and went in my areas’s grocery stores in the late 1980s – though I loved them, store staff tells me few other people did, and they were deemed not worth the maintenance they required. In the same period, terminals placed under transparent desktops – sometimes horizontally, sometimes angled for viewing from other than overhead – were on the cutting edge of “ergonomic design”. They’re now footnotes in technology history, and plant stands. PDAs were the next big thing, then were not, and tablet PCs, an official Microsoft next big thing, have failed in the 7 years since their launch to gain over 1% of the PC market.

 

This history suggests that it’s very hard to predict what technology will gain real popularity. Early vendors were concerned that the mouse would be unacceptable to a wide market, while I predicted in the early 1990s that by the mid 1990s, monitor touchscreens would obsolesce them into technology history. They’re still here, tablet PCs and other touchscreens are hardly found. I think that a much-improved version of something like the Surface will replace i/o devices as we now know them, but my record as a technology prophet is unimpressive.

Now this is a bit of a stretch, as I don't know much about the OS of the 'surface', …

My prediction: Windows Vista

… however I am hoping that a home version will come out in 2008, with a fully functional OS which can play games, run spreadsheets, and do all the media stuff we have seen in the demos.

If you’re willing to dig, and pay, it can be done now. Windows and many unix graphics packages are able to use very large displays, which can be mounted at practically any angle, including “coffee table”. There are several 3rd party companies (though its been a few years since I worked with one) who will turn a monitor of any size into a touchscreen, complete with a external box that allows it to be connected to the box like an ordinary mouse. When last I checked, their support of actions as basic as left doubleclicking was wanting, and of righclicking and scrollwheeling, almost nonexistent.

How much does it cost??

According to multiple articles (ie: Microsoft confirms Surface, their new $10,000 touch-sensitive table | Gadgetell) the Surface will cost US $10,000, and according to Microsoft, be available “winter 2007”. One will be available for us, “the public”, to paw 6/9/2007 at the Sheraton at 811 7th Ave, NY, NY. Nothing on my calendar suggest I’ll be there then, but if anybody can, I (and lots of other hypographers, I’m sure) would love to hear about it.

[Buffy]

The price confirms it: this is for commercial use.

 

I agree with Craig's general perception that its "featured" uses are aimed at hyping other things and in general getting it noticed, when in fact the applications for this are more obscure, but still incredibly important.

 

In my own industry, these things are going to be *fabulous* for doing graphic design and pre-press print production: right now, what we do is have a graphic designer sitting at the keyboard while the rest of us lean over her shoulder and point. Or we print everything out and congregate around the light table. Now we can do both at once! No back and forth!

 

I'm already looking at putting one in the budget for next year....

 

It *wants* to be blue,

Buffy

[Zythryn]

Yes, I agree with both of you.

I realized part of what has me so excited about this is that this is the first time I have seen this type of technology actively planned for distribution.

If they can get the technology down so it is thin enough for a standard desktop, it will redefine a 'desktop' computer:)

I am curious if the 'home use' version is a year off or 5.

[Buffy]

Ha! Here's one pundit's take on "home use":

Sometimes I think Microsoft is out of touch with the way we really live. I don't live in a palatial mansion where the staff tidies up after me. I live in a state of tasteful clutter, where books and magazines - along with toys and other thinks, live on coffee tables, side tables and other surfaces. But in the world Microsoft inhabits, coffee tables are always completely free and clear of clutter, and thus can become yet another computing screen top. That's the vision of the company's new high-tech table, just announced, which it sees as a vast new platform for home and office computing. I'm skeptical. ... Sure, this could be a breakthrough. But only if it comes with a robot maid.

More here...

 

Do you use Pledge or Windex?

 

Must be impervious to grape juice and soggy Captain Crunch,

Buffy

[TheFaithfulStone]

In my own industry, these things are going to be *fabulous* for doing graphic design and pre-press print production: right now, what we do is have a graphic designer sitting at the keyboard while the rest of us lean over her shoulder and point. Or we print everything out and congregate around the light table. Now we can do both at once! No back and forth!

 

Oh. dear. God. I hope to hell not. The last thing I want is clients and programmers standing over my shoulder going - "Can we make the logo bigger? Bigger? BIGGER?" <shudder>

 

I actually interviewed at a company that had something kind of like this - it was like a 35 or 40 inch Cintiq tablet, and it was linked over a network to a similar device at the photographers. The ADs would all scribble on the shot, which showed up on the thing, with their special pens, and the photographer could see the notes appearing on his screen. It was a pretty neat system.

 

TFS

[sanctus]

I find the use of this technology amazing and am surprised no one else has done it before on this type of application.

Buut if you go to the end of the article you linked to, there is this video from this other guy who already planned to commercialise it before microsoft...and actually i like his presentation more than the one from microsoft.

[Zythryn]

Yes, I liked the other presentation too. However, it was simply a technical presentation, with no proposal for a product. The reason why I like the MS presentation so much more is it indicates a movement from the 'drawing board' to technology that will be available in the real world. Quite possible very widespread as well.