Microsoft's "Surface" Coffee Table's Price To Be Slashed
Never Heard Of It?
Microsoft, in may of last year announced there latest jazzy lump of stuff, called "surface".
It's basically a Coffee table with a difference, it's hard table surface is a screen, a touch screen.
It's got a PC built into the box underneath and users interact with it in a similar way people interact with an iPhone with sliding finger gestures and such.
For the geeky people reading this.
The box of tricks under the rear projection screen have the following specs:
[list=1]
What's new is that the big MS have decided to finally drop its $10,000 price tag (About £5,000 if your here in Great Britain) down to an undisclosed amount BUT they have said they are bringing the cost down from what was originally only really applicable to commercial venues to"consumer" price level.
My Personal Thoughts
Remember when you bought that sandwich toaster or blender?
where is it now? In the cupboard with every other gimmick.
Problem is, this virtually unusable impractical gadget is too big to fit in any cupboard.
"Consumer level"? To me that means it should cost; The price of a coffee table, combined with the price of the PC inside plus a bit more for the intuition.
What do you reckon? no more than around £800 ($1600) I'd think.
Something tells me that the people who are deciding the new price like very expensive coffee tables.
Date Published: 17th February 2008
Never Heard Of It?
Microsoft, in may of last year announced there latest jazzy lump of stuff, called "surface".
It's basically a Coffee table with a difference, it's hard table surface is a screen, a touch screen.
It's got a PC built into the box underneath and users interact with it in a similar way people interact with an iPhone with sliding finger gestures and such.
For the geeky people reading this.
The box of tricks under the rear projection screen have the following specs:
- 30 inch screen
- Windows Vista
- Ethernet 10/100
- 802.11 b / g
- Bluetooth 2.0
- 2 GB RAM
- Core 2 Duo
- 256MB graphics
[list=1]
- Screen: The screen uses a diffuser that turns the Surface's acrylic tabletop into a flat touch screen, this diffuser processes multiple inputs from multiple users simultaneously.
The Surface can also recognize objects by their shapes or by reading coded "domino" tags. - Infrared: It gets its "machine vision" operates in the near-infrared spectrum, using an 850-nanometer-wavelength LED light source aimed at the screen.
When objects touch the tabletop,the light reflects back and is picked up by multiple infrared cameras with a net resolution of 1280 x 960. - CPU: Surface uses many of the same components found in everyday desktop computers a Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM and a 256MB graphics card.
Wireless communication with devices on the surface is handled using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth antennas (future versions may incorporate RFID or Near Field Communications).
The underlying operating system is a modified version of Microsoft Vista. - Projector: Microsoft's Surface uses the same DLP light engine found in many rear-projection HDTVs.
The footprint of the visible light screen, at 1024 x 768 pixels, is actually smaller than the invisible overlapping infrared projection to allow for better recognition at the edges of the screen.
What's new is that the big MS have decided to finally drop its $10,000 price tag (About £5,000 if your here in Great Britain) down to an undisclosed amount BUT they have said they are bringing the cost down from what was originally only really applicable to commercial venues to"consumer" price level.
My Personal Thoughts
Remember when you bought that sandwich toaster or blender?
where is it now? In the cupboard with every other gimmick.
Problem is, this virtually unusable impractical gadget is too big to fit in any cupboard.
"Consumer level"? To me that means it should cost; The price of a coffee table, combined with the price of the PC inside plus a bit more for the intuition.
What do you reckon? no more than around £800 ($1600) I'd think.
Something tells me that the people who are deciding the new price like very expensive coffee tables.
Date Published: 17th February 2008
Logged
