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Don’t you wish Microsoft put as much effort and creativity into doing Windows as they put into SecondLight?
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Minimum Hardware: M$ “Surface” at $15,000 per copy !!! Call me when it gets to BestBuy !!!
The Surface team has very bright people, lives outside the Redmond campus, and is hiding in the hardware group in the corporate org chart.
No wonder they are doing cool things.
Pretty innovative but I’m afraid MS has lost the image of being relevant in the innovation department.
Kinda like the Republican party being relevant with the American people. It’s gone.
I just don’t get it. You can move and rotate bitmaps. That’s it?
Beats anything Apple is doing. Vista would have gone over far better if Microsoft insisted on only running it on better hardware. Apple avoids this problem by not allowing OS X to run on marginal hardware. Even today I see Vista premium being offered on stripped down laptops and desktops.
Just so the computer maker can brag up the Aero effects. I use a cheap laptop myself but stick with Vista basic and find it runs very well. I am sure it would suck running Premium or Ultimate.
I certainly believe Microsoft is still capable of great things.
That is pretty cool. Makes ya wonder if Microsofts aim with bloating the crap out of windows is to force vendors to make more powerful systems rather than *gasp* do more with less.
This is iditotic.
Why put paper over a display to show extra information and hide the object underneath?
What would have been cooler is a good text to speech that when the object is touched it TELLS you the additional information.
And you can ask for the source and to search for additional sources relating to the object through Live.
These people just are still stuck in the 20th century.
Cursor_
Such true innovation is amazing. Now where is my holographic chess set.
So, if I go outside and take a picture of my dog and toss it in there, I’ll get a history of dogs, or rottweilers, or what, exactly?
This would work great for pr0n. The main screen would show a fully-clothed woman. Then you hold a piece of paper above the surface and the clothing is removed!
Umm, Interesting gimmick. Game changing? Not at all. How ’bout just make an OS that is worth paying for?
Wow seems a bit much when you could just add a widget in the software that you can drag around over the images and reveal the same results. Or is that not “cool” enough?
This is actually EVEN MORE CASH INTENSIVE, as it requres a SECOND PROJECTOR, synched to the first projector to switch to the secondary image ….
So, expect that to add another 5 to 10 THOUSAND DOLLARS to the price of the “Enhanced Surface” !!!
Still GOING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION !!!
Simple, innovative, cool.
Useful?
*snore*
MS + creativity = oxymoron.
Listen to the applephiles running to comment on this (with the author at the top of the list).
The only reason that apple’s OS is perceived to be ‘better’ is (a) apple controls every computer running it, and (b) nobody is writing viruses or exploits for it, since it’s such a minute portion of the PC universe.
Look, both computers have their place, but I can’t see how anyone can look at the obscene prices and strict hardware limitations of apple and think they are a viable alternative.
#19 Wow WTF are you going on about? We are talking about a piece of hardware that really has no practical use. Why are you trying to insight an endless PC vs Mac war?
Correct me if I’m wrong but Microsoft didn’t invent Secondlight they purchased the rights to the software that was developed by Cambridge university students and professors.
That’s why Microsoft can’t “create” these types of projects or products themselves. Creating just isn’t in their DNA any more.
And when they try and create these large over-arcing projects themselves they usually fail. Recently with VISTA quite spectacularly.
#21
If Vista is such a failure why do they sell it in the always crowded Apple stores?
Yeah, this is pretty cool. Now what were they going to use it for? Looks pretty damn useless to me.
“Don’t you wish Microsoft put as much effort and creativity into doing Windows as they put into SecondLight?”
… well, the Surface technology is already present in Windows 7. It just take time to get it in the mainstream kernel.
This thread proves why keeping the blog tech-only didn’t work: You guys don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
Until M$ brings a consumer touch device to market, all the research in the world is only cool for demonstrations.
Unfortunately, the last time they did a successful go-to-market was in ’95.
Face it: M$ is in the same position IBM was when Gates and Balmer cut the DOS deal with them. The only question now is how long they float adrift before they’re destroyed, collapse, or get their shit together.
so it’s an OS you can only see in the dark, and all it does is rotate images around and zoom in?
ALL this power for Image manipulation, ONLY..
Lets see it run CRYSIS..and use Finger controls on the surface…
Ooh, technology that will never make it to market!
# 20 ikelleigh said, “We are talking about a piece of hardware that really has no practical use.”
Lot’s of research has no immediate practical application. Doesn’t mean the research is useless.
But, after reading yesterday about all the new and improved bits in Windows 7, I just cried. Same old file system. Same rotten registry. Research is great and God knows MS has enough bucks to do some. But development and refinement are just as important.
#26 – James Hill
I agree with you!!
They used the plain table without the projection on CNN during the debates. It works great as a tool for use in the TV studio. They’ll probably sell quite a few of the original model to TV stations and networks.
ZZZZZZZZZ what a load of useless crap
its almost as bad as digital TV and having to buy an HDTV