3 ms·
Looks like they're trying to bring back the ghost of the original Surface (not the tablet one). I developed for the original Surface and SUR-40 while in grad sc
by GuiA 11y ago
Looks like they're trying to bring back the ghost of the original Surface (not the tablet one). I developed for the original Surface and SUR-40 while in grad school - in fact, my master's thesis was about certain forms of interactions enabled on tabletop computers.
The first surface was a cool product, which I still believe was just too early (poor technology: needed a high DPI screen, sluggish processor, etc; terrible software, high price tag, smartphones and tablets were not what they are now so the idea of hub was limited). The SUR-40 was a disaster (the screen would bend when you touched it, ffs).
There's something powerful in hub computers, but not in the TV form. The tabletop form was right all along - collaborating around a table enables kinds of interactions that are not possible on a white board (notably by using physical objects in conjunction with the tabletop). The SUR-40 had the ambition of being usable both in whiteboard and table mode, but that's probably overdoing it. Interested to see where this goes, but the high price tag makes me doubtful. Make a $999 coffee table computer that every nerd can have in their living room to play boardgames, use to swap vacation photos/movies between phones and beam them up to the TV, collaborate on floorpans, etc. and you may have something.
- joshuapants 11y agoI remember when I first heard of the original Surface I was desperate to own one and followed every bit of news I could find. I do hope that future iterations of the hub will revisit the table paradigm, though now that I've cooled down my nerd lust I do realize that there may be some ergonomic concerns. Having to lean over a table to see the display properly could be a literal pain in the neck over the long term.
- edgarvaldes 11y agoI would love a hybrid between a drawing board, a Surface table, and... something else. I mean, not for programing but more for another, art-oriented, tasks.
- Blaaguuu 11y agoIt looks to me like Microsoft is trying to position HoloLense to scratch that particular itch... They could potentially have experiences like the original Surface table, but using AR over a normal table, rather than an active table. It would sure be weird to walk into a meeting room, and have everyone put on their AR goggles, but if it turns out to be really effective, it could be better than a Surface table in many ways.
- smacktoward 11y agoI always thought an interesting direction for that type of machine would be to resurrect the form factor of the old "cocktail"-style arcade game cabinets: http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/330868472385-0-1/s-l1000.jpg http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/330868472385-0-1/s-l1000.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_arcade_cabinet#Cocktail_or_table_cabinets http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_arcade_cabinet#Cockt... I.e. screen in the middle of the table, with 2 or 4 interaction mechanisms (stylus? mouse? touchpad?) along the edges. Make the surface low enough that people can pull up a stool or small chair. Give the users an easy way to flip the display back and forth and it'd be an interesting setup for collaborative work.
- GuiA 11y agoIt's 2015, we have multitouch screens, why would we want clunky styluses/mouse/touchpads? The original surface had the nice property of being very spill/damage resistant.