Microsoft Surface - The Last Big A** Table You Will Ever Buy?
by Mark Ontkush, Boston, Massachusetts, USA on 05. 4.08
If you are not familiar with Microsoft Surface, view said video; you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll see Peak Tech has arrived. Because what you are seeing, in action, is a $10,000 table where you can (a) watch video, (b) make maps, and (c) finger paint. These must be the strong points; they are in the ad.
The underlying "Multi-Touch" technology in Surface was invented in 1982; it's old, old wine, and the "table" concept is a helluva lot older than that. At one time, neat things were done - Donkey Kong comes to mind - but the $10,000 videotastic table seems limited. You might be able realize the dream of putting your PC desktop on a real desktop; me, I'm an oak man.
When we said that that iPhone (or in-kind multitude) is the last phone you will ever buy, we meant it. Somewhere slightly south of this acme we have Surface; you'll be buying other tables.
Anyone remember Winky Dink? Parents sent away for special vinyl sheet to stick on the TV screen and kids would "draw" or "paint" along with the host.
Good for about two tries until the kid forgot the clear screen cover.
I guess some people just don't get sarcasm.
...why is this on Treehugger?
[we have always recommended and encouraged the appropriate use of technology, and generally discourage the adoption of technologies created primarily for technology's sake. We feel Microsoft Surface falls in the latter category mjo]
Microsoft's Surface current implementation of a multi-touch technology is extremely costly and more of a high-end toy than anything but there are lower end multi-touch implementations available.
As well there are a number of people who are looking at more useful implementations of multi-touch technology.
The local TV news in my city is using it vertically to show and browse web pages on the air. Yeah, we're a little slow out here.