For these who have no clue what Microsoft surface is : http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

This has been around for quite a while now, getting more and more concrete every few month, and is said to be available by winter 2007.

My question is simple : do you believe that this will be the future of home computers, or do you believe that it will simply fail, and if you think it will fail, why and what would beat it?

My personal point of view : I think this is truly the future : connecting everything (including bank accounts, maps, pictures and etc.) together, on the easiest thing ever to use : a sensor screen, therefore the surface from Microsoft.

Saw it on tv a few days ago, exclusive interview with Bill Gates.

Was pretty cool.

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Originally posted by alby
This has been around for quite a while now, getting more and more concrete every few month, and is said to be available by winter 2007.

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I think it'll take its place in every house, but won't replace the keyboard of the desktop pc. Of course, it has a LOT of advantages, but there'll always be the need of a keyboard.

MS Surface is more like a research project, looking for new possible things and technology.

As such, I think this is another attempt to replace the paper desktop. Long time ago MS already wanted to do that, and this evolved in Windows, etc. It was then said that paper would soon dissapear.

This is kind of the same thing. I think we are very very far from such things as this*. Though, it will trigger the development of new stuff (eg: the tablet PC is also one of those things which resulted from this kind of research in the past).

For example, in MS Surface they show big flat screens which replace your physical papers and your entire desktop. This is still very far from realistic in every household. Though, what will be seen more and more are advanced touch screens with GUIs which are operated by hand gestures. So you have the GUI of what is shown with MS Surface but on 'old' screens, replacing the mouse more and more.

(*huge tablets like shown in the movies in each household to do everyday stuff.)



As for connecting everything, that would be more realistic I think. Already a hell of a lot of things are already connected to eachother (hence why identity theft is such a big issue in this era) and it will only increase.

Something tells me RTS games are about to get interesting!

Turn my desk into an extra screen? Yes please. Control things with hand gestures? Yes please. But, it's not the way I would have done those two things. For example, as a control surface, it's too big, and requires too much hand movement. You can't sit back and use it, you've got to lean forward, which gets old very quickly. I like the tangible representation of the file system- dragging things straight into your phone, for example, it's a natural extension to the PARC trash can.

Don't get me wrong, I think they will take off, and it would be very handy to have for some tasks. But I think for many tasks, there are better interfaces.

I make most of my money drawing manufacturing machinery, which is obviously a very visual thing. While most of my contemporaries have tablets or use Gui controls, I find it's just much faster to use a keyboard for instructions and the mouse for selecting objects. It's much faster not to have to take your eyes off what you're working on to find the button you need, and then re-focus on your work. And I'm sure there are people who do other things who would have their life so improved by this interface, but having my hands all over a huge screen means they have to be far away from the keyboard, and that's a pain.

However, I'm hanging on for digital paper. Especially if digital paper can turn my handwriting straight into mathematical ligatures and equations that I can use and combine. Mmmm...

I was reading about the people who made and one of them commented he would love to link four or so tables up and play air hockey. You could add heaps of cool things like gravity walls and black holes etc.

If I had one of these I would definitely keep anyone who has sticky/greasy fingers away from it!!!

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Originally posted by Mattike
I think it'll take its place in every house, but won't replace the keyboard of the desktop pc. Of course, it has a LOT of advantages, but there'll always be the need of a keyboard.

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Originally posted by LoochTheMan

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Originally posted by Mattike
I think it'll take its place in every house, but won't replace the keyboard of the desktop pc. Of course, it has a LOT of advantages, but there'll always be the need of a keyboard.

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There could be a keyboard integrated into the touch screen that is brought up that allows for typing without an actual keyboard.

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I don't think it will come in every home. To be honest, that has to cost alot, also making the device slightly harder to get. (This will surely decrease, but still, time to come)

Even though I must say that looks fancy, I'd really love to have one.

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Originally posted by Verte
Have you ever tried to touch type on a picture of a keyboard?

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Originally posted by Verte
Have you ever tried to touch type on a picture of a keyboard?

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Before you go thinking Microsoft whipped this up totally by their own... there have been a few attempts at this kind of thing before, most notably this.

seems pretty cool tbh =P

thread continued in Computers without keyboard/mouse