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.
Today HTC Fired off a statement rebuking Apples lawsuits and pointing out all the ways in the last ten years that they’ve brought innovation to the mobile arena. Here’s the statement from HTC.
Seattle – March 17, 2010 – HTC Corporation today outlined its disagreement with Apple’s legal actions and reiterated its commitment to creating a portfolio of innovative smartphones that gives consumers a variety of choices. Founded in 1997 with a passion for innovation and a vision for how smartphones would change people’s lives, HTC has continually driven this vision by consistently introducing award-winning smartphones with U.S. mobile operators. (more…)
Microsoft announced yesterday that they’ve found more bugs. Surprise. Microsoft annouced via security bulletin on the TechNet site that vulnerabilities were found and patched in various versions of Office, SharePoint, and it’s movie making software Producer. All of the vulnerabilities found allow what microsoft calls “Remote Code Execution”, which means that malicious code can be planted and run on your computer. This is not a new thing for Microsoft and they fix them as the find them but, the just keep finding them.
Here’s a rundown of the affected software: (more…)
If you’ve ever had problems starting up your intel based mac you’ll want to bookmark this article. Apple released a support article today with a load of great keyboard shortcuts to subvert the startup of Intel based Macs.
Apple is turning back the clock and encouraging people to back their music up on CD. If you REALLY REALLY want to keep your music on CD Apple will tell you how to get your music out of AAC and into MP3.
Microsoft today released a laundry list of security bulletins and patches. The security patches and bulletins released today covered an array of vulnerabilities ranging from bugs in it’s almost prehistoric MS Paint program to some core vulnerabilities.
Windows updater should pick up these updates if you have it enabled. Read more to see if you’re affected (you probably are).
We’ll the post earlier today about the 28 support articles of course was timed for today’s release of Apple’s Aperture 3. Photographers everywhere will be delighted. The new version is loaded with new features and fixes from Aperture 2.
If you’re using Apple’s Aperture software you should get to their support site NOW! Apple just released twenty eight new articles in their knowledge base. Some of the just released articles are tips and tricks and some are notes on bugs and bug fixes. Hit the jump for a rundown of the titles and links. (more…)
Yesterday Apple released what is now the latest update for for it’s iPhone. Now the current version is 3.1.3. Apple has gone only five months since it’s last update to 3.1.2.
3.1.2 fixed a bug that affected many people, including myself, that caused the iPhone to sporadically reboot. Will 3.1.3 be as helpful?
With this weeks announcement of the Apple iPad they now say they have a new category of device. Some say that the new category is just a bigger version of everything else they have. We’ll let the tale of the tape tell the story.
I’ll give you a hint, if you squint a little at the spec comparisons you won’t be able to tell iPad from iPhone from iTouch.
Let’s check out the specs Apples to Apples (to Apples). (more…)
