Geek In Disguise

Hi Steve,

Yes, totally agree with you. I am still scratching my head though, trying to understand where in reality "Surface" could be used.

It would have be nice to have a Microsoft Exec taking the stage and introducing this technology to the world. The promo sites for Silverlight, Popfly and now Surface look wonderful.  But the company needs a charismatic exec to launch the technology to the world.  Jobs does this so well.

Where are the webcasts??  

You're probably right, but BillG was on the Today show demonstrating Surface this morning, I think that probably reached a lot of people.  

There is a video of it here:

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/sticker-shock/video-of-bill-gates-showing-off-his-expensive-table-264453.php

Wasn't there an urban myth about this a few years ago? Evidently Bill has MS Surface 'wallpaper' in his house or something of that ilk.

How long before the Star Trek replicators mean that I can put the kitchen apron back in the drawer?

I watched the video on www.on10.net I had like five other people watch today, my jaw dropped by the end of the demo.  Its pretty fantastic, and I'm pretty sure its not just Microsoft technology either, I think its alien technology recovered from the Roswell crash...haha just kidding

http://www.on10.net/Blogs/larry/first-look-microsoft-surfacing-computing/

The demo video is fantastic

the videos are awesome...love the idea that its intuiative. Yes i agree. where is the dynamic individual that is going to make a noise about this? MS Research Labs doing some great stuff and when something is finally released there should be fireworks.....

Great to meet you, Steve. Made me find this blog, which I think is fantastic.

Surface is ermm... a twenty-five year-old idea that didn't work back then and won't work now.

Why? OK - pacman on a pub table means you can't put anything on it. A glass surface means it's slippy and looks dirty in five seconds. LCD requires a viewing angle of 70-90 degrees and so the tables have to be really low. That's why people didn't sit at those tables in '82. Add on to that patch tuesday and the fact that pubs don't have video games any more, and...

There's already a better, equivalent hardware technology out there - interactive whiteboards - that has taken off tremendously in education (thanks to charles clarke's vision), has matured enormously and deserves a better showing in offices. They really are fantastic devices.

I've seen tabletop PCs every year from someone - usually end-of-year graduation shows - for ten years.

No one wants them.

(oops - I guess the corporate sponsorship thing I had in mind is off, then)

Great to meet you, Steve. Made me find this blog, which I think is fantastic.

Surface is ermm... a twenty-five year-old idea that didn't work back then and won't work now.

Why? OK - pacman on a pub table means you can't put anything on it. A glass surface means it's slippy and looks dirty in five seconds. LCD requires a viewing angle of 70-90 degrees and so the tables have to be really low. That's why people didn't sit at those tables in '82. Add on to that patch tuesday and the fact that pubs don't have video games any more, and...

There's already a better, equivalent hardware technology out there - interactive whiteboards - that has taken off tremendously in education (thanks to charles clarke's vision), has matured enormously and deserves a better showing in offices. They really are fantastic devices.

I've seen tabletop PCs every year from someone - usually end-of-year graduation shows - for ten years.

No one wants them.

(oops - I guess the corporate sponsorship thing I had in mind is off, then)

This is a product far better suited to the WOW marketing campaign than Vista ever was.  The lack of promotion is also a sign of how Microsoft's marketing seems able to magnify the minimal and miss the magical.