Microsoft Surface is one of those products that instantly make you stand up and take notice. It’s an incredibly accessible, and natural piece of technology. Taking away the cumbersome pc box and building it into an aesthetically pleasing device.
This is a device containing a Vista based multi-touch screen interface built into a coffee table design. To add to that it’s also Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth enabled. It’s a design that in theory instantly appeals to the non technical – finally an easy to use device that doesn’t need a keyboard and mouse that doesn’t look like a computer. It’s a design paradigm that we’ve seen many times in countless movies – anything from star-trek, Tron and Minority Report. It’s something that could lend itself incredibly well to the creative process – enable a virtual pasteboard – allowing content to be sourced from any connected device, and manipulated in a natural way.
Because it’s a networked device through an incredibly intuitive interface there are wonderful implications for shared desktops. Imagine two people in different parts of the company looking at the same table, each manipulating items, drawings and graphics. For large creative agencies it certainly makes collaborative working a whole lot easier. It’s not necessarily easy because it wasn’t possible before – but is easier because it’s done through a far more natural interface – your fingertips directly interacting with what you see.
So – apart from collaborative working, or virtual pasteboards – microsoft has more ideas up it’s sleeve – examples in the video show off the capability of the system to identify and show connected devices that are placed on its surface – a mobile phone shop, a zune, and a glass in the demo’s. It’s going to be an incredibly versatile advertising medium. I highly doubt that the device can actually detect when a cup is placed on its surface, although the implications of detecting connected devices make things a lot easier than plugging in usb cables, or firewire leads.
One of it’s strongest benefits is that it can be a multi-user experience, there doens’t just have to be one person physically using it – touching it, as many people as can fit around it – can use it. This is certainly a product to keep an eye on, and I can’t wait to get my hands on one to test when the product starts coming out at the end of the year. I’ll keep the blog updated with more information as I find out about it.
This is basically content from multiple websites and sources combined to form a new site. I love news mashup sites, and there are some really great ones out there, Netvibes, Pageflakes, iGoogle Most of them let you publish your ‘mashup’ to other people or sites.I use Google Reader every day to filter my way through hundreds of stories and create my own personalized news feed where in times past I would have had to look at their web site. It’s really made my net connected life a lot more enjoyable, saving time and letting me explore more, which is what it’s all about.
I recently came across flickrvision (created by Dave Troy) it’s a mashup showing the world map from Google maps (in 3D or 2D) and then it shows you images as they are posted to the flickr website with their locations around the world it’s really beautiful to watch, and it really seems to bring the world closer to you.
The whole web is buzzing with what sites are coming out next that mash up content, and aside from Google even Yahoo and Microsoft are looking at ways that that users can generate their own personalised web content. There is of course a real reason why mashup sites are so profitable aside from basic advertising.Every user who generates their own custom web content is generating valuable user profile information about themselves that back to the company that’s serving out the data. The company can then customize the data that the user is receiving making it more personal to them based on their usage, and ensure that the user is getting adverts, or content which would be suitable for them. Hey! even if they don’t target show adverts, they can still mine the data – either way they get something out of you.
I accept that there are far more important things like clean water, food, medicine, safety, and shelter. But once those basic needs have been satisfied – education and knowledge must be key.
It’s a not for profit project envisioned by Nicholas Negroponte, and the idea is to get the cost of the laptops down to under $100 each so governments and organisations in developing countries can buy them as part of their educational program. The design of the XO (the laptop) is fantastic – with a screen that can be read in direct sunlight, a power supply that can be charged by winding it up, and a keyboard designed to resist sand and dirt, and be highly resistant to water penetration. The software it uses is based on open source, and it’s using a processor designed by AMD.
This project is currently at a crucial time of development, all it needs now is for a few orders to really get it off the ground and get proper buy in.
So here’s the problem, Intel have just brought out a competitor at $200, and running Microsoft software. The Intel Classmate PC looks like it’s a sickening way to profit from the increasing excitement and popularity of the upcoming XO, using their marketing muscle to sell an inferior design for more money.
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