Microsoft Surface. Yeaaaaah. You remember that right?
Well, Surface has decided to emerge again from the depths of obscurity, this time demonstrating pen and photoshop touch functionality through an application called Manual Deskterity. While I don’t contest that touch is a must have feature right now, the reality is that Apple and its iPad are drinking some serious milkshake in this space. After all, who wants to buy a piece of furniture to run apps off of it? This isn’t to discredit the concept entirely, as an intelligent surface could be really cool.
*Could* being the operative word.
If it automatically and non proprietorially expanded the functionality of hand held or tablet devices on its surface, that would be cool.
If surface automatically recognized me when I walked up to it irregardless of coffee shop and it pulled up my settings when I wanted to use it, that would be some hardcore cloud computing crack.
But touch enabled photoshop? Cracker, please.
Don’t get me wrong, by providing a large work surface and eliminating pen discrimination, many digital media artists would gladly wrestle a velociraptor just to get their pens back. Barehanded even. But so far, Apple has defined its niche in the creative space for some time now. The immutable laws of marketing are providing some pretty hardcore odds to overcome.
There are benefits to large stationary touch enabled surfaces. But perhaps the true test of usability for platforms like Microsoft Surface and their developers will be their ability to condense their hardware and software into a thin film that can be applied to any public surface. I wonder when they will be demonstrating that, because that would be pretty revolutionary.
To that end, my feeling is that Surface R&D needs to submerge a bit longer, and perhaps use its periscope to see where the trends are before purging the ballast tanks over touch and pen enabled photoshop. Its a good thing that Manual Deskerity is looking to expand to other platforms, because I foresee a serious pivot in the future.
How much is it?
Comment by Brianna — March 24, 2010 @ 1:20 pm
Neither HTC or Sprint have hinted at the price yet
Comment by savanthongvanh — March 24, 2010 @ 1:33 pm
6 Megabits? In Hong Kong we already have 21 Megabits! and it's still considered 3.5G…our 4G speeds are forecasted to be in the range of 50Mbps!
Comment by Max — March 24, 2010 @ 1:52 pm
Max, yes, US speeds suck. According to Sprint their 4g speeds will average 3-6MB/s http://www.nextel.com/en/solutions/mobile_broad...
Comment by savanthongvanh — March 24, 2010 @ 2:11 pm
I'm still using dial up. Damn dats fasssssst
Comment by 4gfool — March 25, 2010 @ 1:41 am
Well, I've been obsessively checking every day, all day long for news of a 2.1 upgrade for my Hero. To be honest, I didn't think we would see a 4g phone until the end of the year. It may be impetuous and ridiculously optimistic, but I'm planning to buy the Evo for myself and my boyfriend just as soon as it hits the shelf. I've been waiting a long time for this kind of hardware on an Android device. I was an early adopter. I've had a G1, a myTouch and now a Hero. My dad has my boyfriend's old G1, My boyfriend and I both have Sprint Heros now. We had to switch networks when we couldn't get voice or data coverage in our home or offices. We have Clear Networks as an ISP, so I'm super psyched to see Sprint partnering with them. And I'm way excited about the possibility of simultaneous voice/data services. Anyway, glad to find a community like http://www.Evo4Gforum.net with full of people as anxious as I am for the release of the Evo.
Comment by coolfx35 — April 5, 2010 @ 1:49 am