i still want one
a surface that is...
no i dont know what i would do with it, but damnit i want one!
During his annual keynote speech at CES in Las Vegas this week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer revealed the company had sold eight million Kinect devices in its first 60 days - three million more than expected. In the last two months of 2010, Kinect purchases went through the roof, boosting sales for Xbox consoles in the process …
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/maximum_pc_builds_a_multitouch_surface_computer?page=0%2C0
biggest issue is the need for a short throw projector, ideally LED to keep the consumption and lamp changes low.
because that is a little taller than a coffee table
...Ballmer won't care - sales are sales after all.
Still, if he had sense, he'd be pushing development of support and tools for the kinnect box on Windows (possibly other?) platforms.
For once, M$ has something productised that could be quite innovative, if they manage to exploit it for more than as a novelty gaming device before others do.
WOW - Nice showing of a BBC News technology article, second only to Private eye in the field of spectacular accuracy and investigative journalism :-/
The article boils down to two sections:
1. A quote from one guy who rang into Radio 4 (says it all, really) and mentioned that after his warranty expired, the xbox died - so, story is "Xbox360 over three years old dies - SHOCK".
2. Author then goes onto a couple of forum's, and copy/pastes two posts slagging off the kinect and how it destroyed their box etc etc.
I'm not a fan of kinect by ANY stretch (nearly the same price as the console, stupid delayed way of pausing games. crap first wave of games which are more proof of concept than anything) but lets not jump on the "Accessory blows up console" bandwagon *just* yet.
Guitar Hero 2 was the earliest one that I can recall, but if you visit the Xbox.com forums a few days after any major game or hardware release, you'll see a bunch of '$PRODUCT broke my Xbox' or '$Product gives you the RRoD' threads.
Xboxes break all the time (I'm on my third), it's got nothing to do with Kinect, COD 27, Rock Band Drums or any of the other scapegoats.
"Avatar Kinect, will bring a player's avatar to life using facial recognition technology. This means an avatar will not only mimic a player's movements, but also their expressions."
And? Besides, I'll believe it when I see it.
"From spring, Xbox Live Gold subscribers will be able to use Kinect to control their netflix experience. Users can pause, rewind and fast-forward streamed-movies with voice commands or gestures."
Wasn't it supposed to do this out of the box? Oh.... I see, they took that out to make you buy it.
"In his speech Ballmer revealed a clutch of Kinect-enabled experiences coming soon in 2011. "
'Experiences' - pffft. SO..... that would be two then? Both completley naff. Wow, it's really looking to be a great year for Kinect.
"1.5 million WP7 devices were sold in the first six weeks of availability and its app marketplace continues to grow fast, with more than 100 apps added daily."
Sure about that? Reports indicated that 1.5 million WP7 devices were /shipped to retailers/, not sold. There's a very large, smoke-and-mirrors-related difference.
I enjoy my Kinect but seriously:
1. Netflix and Hulu Plus - umm, no. Doesn't mean anything to me. Can't use either of them.
2. Avatar Kinect - so I can now have the thing I don't use at all make stupid expressions - could be fun for all of 5 seconds. What an absolute waste of time. I ask the question seriously - does anyone ever actually DO anything with their avatars?
3. Surface - would probably be better still being classed under Microsoft Labs. It's just not practical as yet, and until there's a point to having it at home or in business, it really should just stay in R&D until they come up with something useful.
4. Cut/Paste - well, it's something a few people want, but I'd have to say I haven't seen a single use for it on my WP7 device as yet. Clever design has made the things I would c/p in files accessible just by tapping them. Guess I prefer writing my own stuff.
5. Kinect - as I said, I enjoy it, but really it needs some key functionality like 'xbox turn off' and 'xbox dashboard' from inside games/media. Being able to finish up playing and get up saying 'xbox turn off' almost as an afterthought would be a simple yet nice touch. For parents 'xbox parental control override turn off' could force kids to actually go to bed....so many little things that could be useful. I've also yet to see that advertised martial arts combat game from the pre-launch videos.
I'm surprised there are no comments regarding Balmers statement that "Surface" would enable an LCD display screen to act like a camera.
If you thought Pform was bad...just wait until your TV or Monitor allows advertisers to see you watching what they display on the screen so they can tune the sales pitch to your glazed over facial expressions.
Or worse, in the style of Orwell, the "guverment" can spy on you in your own living room.
Wanna bet we have a worm in 2 years that takes advantage of this?
I hope there is a tool that let's you know who's watching whom.
calm yourself down a bit. You must have watched many anime/movies where the characters talk to each other over the phone and _look_ at each other. This is not the same as what we currently have with cams, where everyone is looking at the screen and therefore appear to be looking at something else from the other end.
this "Surface" might be able to give us this natural way of looking the other person in the eye while talking to them using the PC.
Other then this, I honestly don't see the difference between having the "Surface" and having a webcam. _Both_ will have the same security fears.
Honestly, you can't see the difference between a webcam and a two way LCD screen????
The difference is you can unplug the webcam and be damn sure no one is watching you.
An LCD TV/Monitor that can provide two way visual communication scares me because you would NEVER know if someone was watching back.
This is especially true with the insecurity of MS Software.
a) I don't see the difference at all. Think logically, Dan Paul. A DVI/HDMI lead is output only. In order to get input you'd need a second lead back to the main processing hardware (like the USB cable on your webcam). If you're scared, unplug it.
b) "This is especially true with the insecurity of MS Software."
I would like to see ratio in print, from Sophos or somebody similar which details number of discovered insecurities against worldwide user-base. Is MS software really insecure or are a lot more people trying to hack it than linux/osx./other?
I suspect the latter. Because it's everywhere. It's the same reason people write cop shows for TV but not for semaphore.
Who knows what the connector will be in the future?
Besides the HDMI spec does allow two way communication (at least for security which can make your player drop to low def if your TV doesn't give the correct reply on protected Blurays). Even the old SCART standard allowed simultaneous two way video.
And if you put them in a laptop, its harder to cover the lens with a bit of tape.
happy to spend money on something badly broken....
I don't know a single person that's happy with Kinect, infact I know several that have taken them back because they are pants.
So either there are 8m fools, or Steve is telling white lies about numbers.... ( We already know that his shipped figure means shipped from manufactuer to warehouses and not sold to consumers).
I'm guessing there is a very big slow boat from China somewhere with ALOT of Kinects on it, that allows Steve to spin this lame PR Bullshit.