November 8, 2007 2:53 PM PST
Bumps on the road to Microsoft's Surface
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The software maker's initial plan was to get partners with the touch-screen machines up and running as early as this month. Now it estimates it will take until spring before the devices start showing up in locations like Sheraton hotels, Harrah's casinos, and T-Mobile retail locations.
Part of the holdup has been in developing the custom software each of those partners needs, as well as making sure the hardware is suited to their locations.
"What we have found out is this is not a one-size-fits-all solution," said Mark Bolger, a senior director in Microsoft's surface computing unit. Microsoft had already spent four years developing the product before going public this May.
Video: Microsoft unveils touch-screen computing
Giant tabletop PC blends reality with virtual reality.
The product, originally code-named Milan, looks a bit like a 1980s sit-down Ms. Pac Man machine, but uses infrared cameras and a projector to create a touch-screen that can respond to multiple users' hand gestures, as well as interact with other objects.
Even as the short-term work proves a bit thorny, the company is growing more enthusiastic about the eventual market for its devices, Bolger said. Since the Surface's May unveiling, Microsoft has gotten more than 2,000 inquiries from companies in 50 countries and 25 different industries.
While it remains focused on its early launch partners, Microsoft hopes to broaden the product in short order to other companies and other industries.
It has yet to launch a public developer's kit, but it has set up a partner advisory council to get outside ideas on what markets might be most ripe. As a result of that feedback, it's speeding up plans to move into the government, education, and enterprise arenas, in addition to the current areas of focus--hospitality and retail, Bolger said.
The company has taken its Surface prototypes on the road a lot in the past six months, showing them to thousands of people in places like New York, Toronto, Boston, Paris, and Zurich. Microsoft plans to show off three of the units publicly on Saturday at the Sheraton in Boston.
"The response continues to be one of overwhelming excitement," Bolger said. "It's confirmation that this is a new category."
In a recent interview with CNET News.com, Bill Gates spoke about the potential of surface computing to go far beyond the tabletop, once the costs come down. The initial units are expected to cost in the range of $5,000 to $10,000, but the company still hopes they will fall to a price affordable to consumers within three to five years. Longer term, Gates sees computers invading all manner of flat spaces.
"It can be in every desk," Gates said. "It can be in every table, it can be in every whiteboard, every mirror. Give us a 5- to 10-year time frame and we will wonder why our tables used to just sit there and not do anything for us."
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Not hardly...
I can't understand why MS insists on misrepresenting how 'Surface' works. This is not a 'touch' surface device. It relies on motion-detection and triangulation with the surface as the baseline. Object-detection/positioning...with your finger, nose, toe or cellphone all being nothing more.
With a minimum of 5 cameras below the 'tabletop', a certain minimum depth is required. The depth includes physical space for the cameras and the spatial distance needed to obtain near-100% triangulation that goes along with motion-detection - none of which can be applied or obtained with a typical mirror or whiteboard without building a container with sufficient depth. How does Bill expect to market a mirror that requires a wall that can support a 20" deep pocket...or is it supposed to stand out 20" from the wall?
'Surface' is doomed to go the way of 'Bob' - just watch.
good for. The demo of having it in a restaurant was pretty neat,
and the wireless camera/infrared credit card detection was really
gung-ho, but thats about it. The touch drawing was just ok, it
can draw smiley faces really well.
But at the end of the day, what practical purpose does it serve?
You can't do any real world work on it, yet.
Seems like Microsoft misjudged the market with this product.
And it's partners & onlookers are more like the comforting
mother at a baseball game, congratulating them with "homerun
hit" enthusiasm. When all they've really done was grounded out
? bunting.
Besides the big time Casinos, and the Chuck E. Cheese's of the
world, its not really a consumer ready product. Or, for that
matter a product any industry can use yet. Thats why it's been
delayed till spring because they can't figure out how to conform
it to any and every companies business model (and or services)
without them having to serve individual businesses for any
glitches. And whats worst is they only have a few partners, really
deeming this a work-as-you go kind of project.
But its gimmicky at best. What Microsoft really needs to do is
stop focusing on what the future might look like, and leave that
to other companies. Their better at the copy cat game then
playing the pioneer. With this product, it seems their still stuck
in the heady- delusional Windows 95 era.
Points for Microsoft:
?Kill XP as soon as possible
?bring out VISTA service pack 1, 2 and 3
?And stop playing with that dam table toy
MS has had an epiphany. "one size does not fit all"
They really put a lot of (overpaid) thought into this, didn't they.
He's right though, and tables are only the first item. Chairs are
next. In a few years people will wonder why we sat on them.
MS has a history of talking vaporware well in advance of delivery
to try and get people not to check out alternatives.
So, why are these 'partners' lining up for the big-ass table?
And why are they surprised that it's late?
And when are people going to stop allowing this type of
mediocrity to continue?
Looks like a duck etc...
This is simply simply simply a dumb idea for a table. Think about
it...did those video games that were built into a table catch on? One
defeats the purpose of the other...
If your product hearks back to the days of Pac-Man, it will not be a successful one.
Interactive touch-tables would be a great way to support group work and projects in K-12 classrooms. In my opinion, this would be more beneficial than providing each student with a laptop, and much better than a single interactive whiteboard stationed at the front of the classroom.
Why?
Historically, tables have been the place where people come together - in homes, and in the workplace, to communicate, to share information and ideas, to work on projects, and to collaborate.
Research conducted in school settings suggests that cooperative teaching and learning strategies can increase academic engagement, time-on-task, and positive social skills among students, if implemented appropriately. These are important skills for students to learn- skills that will provide them with tools they'll need later on in life. With a school drop-out rate of about 25-30 percent in the US, and higher in urban areas, something like the Surface might make a small difference.
Students and teachers would be provided with a great combination of creative ways to teach and learn in classrooms outfitted with a couple of Surface tables or similar interactive displays. Imagine what would happen next if you threw in a classroom set of Wi-Fi enabled multifunctional PDA's that students could also use outside of school!
A modification of the Surface would be consistent with the guidelines of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and the Universally Designed Classroom (UDC). Microsoft, or one of the many companies entering this market, might want to consider developing modified version of the Surface. If a touch-screen surface was mounted so that it could be adjusted like a drafting board, and was enabled to inter-operate with a variety of input devices, it would make it accessible to a wide range of students, including those with disabilities.
For more information about Universal Design for Learning, visit the CAST website at http://www.cast.org.
Lynn Marentette
This may change and the killer app may yet be developed that shows us how much we really need it. 20 years ago nobody would ever think we needed iPods and yet they are successful today. They made a market demand where there was none, so I can't really disclaim the potential entirely. I'd like to see this developed by Apple and Linux groups as well to see what can come out of the technology.
It better have pretty redundant protection though. Clean the screen with glass cleaner and find you just formatted your hard drive too.
- You guys are morons
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by Jonathan
November 11, 2007 9:49 AM PST
- Wow high end tech that just can't be simply applied to existing hardware having a hard time taking off? NO! You are kidding! I'm shocked I say, shocked!
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See all 38 Comments >>Seriously this is just retarded. MS shows off a rushed proof of concept device that has been on the burner for a while but needed to be pushed to the front because Apple is starting to play with the same basic concepts, and MS didn't want to look like they were ripping off Apple; which by the way they aren't.
If anything its MS who has the correct strategy here. Snag the corp environment or in this case retail with this tech then go after the individual users once both the hardware and software are established. If you think Surface will stay only in a tablet format you are a moron fanboy. Expect this tech to miniaturize and become refined as it hits the market over the next 5 years. The key is to build API support for Surface into their Windows Mobile OS. Its horse and the cart, chicken and the egg time. MS need to work out a functional API for their phones, etc for this to ever take off in a big way. But for now. Get a few companies on board and work out the bugs which is exactly what this "delay" is. Think of these early companies jumping on this as alpha testers. Beta testing will probably come in 2009 long after Apple implements some cheesy version of Surface in some tablet or touch screen that everyone will say MS ripped off. Again Surface is not a quick and dirty tech that can be slapped into an existing piece of hardware. Its long term goal is to fundamentally change how we interact with our computer and getting to that point requires RFID's in a crap load of things we don't have them in right now. So 2 years for surface to surface? Sure. Why not. There is no rush.