[AG-TECH] FYI: microsoft surface, Disneyland
Andrew Daviel
advax at triumf.ca
Thu Sep 4 17:37:57 CDT 2008
Somewhat off-topic, I know..
I was just down at Disneyland in Anaheim and dropped in on the "house of
the future" display, sponsored by Microsoft, HP etc.
Everywhere you'd expect a wall lightswitch, they had a touch-screen
display to work the lights, draw the blinds, select the music and change
the pictures in all the photo frames. I forget the brand; similar to the
control panels people have to run projectors, screens, lights etc.
I gather it also worked from an RFID bracelet to set "your" mood when you
entered a room, but I didn't see that. Only the "Dad's theme", "Grandma's
theme" buttons.
They also had several Microsoft surfaces, which everyone was playing
with. One table had 4 tiled displays; lots of space between though,
guess they need to work on the bezel size. Apparently it works by
infra-red rather than capacitative effect, optics etc. and can sense
multiple locations at once - a whole hand, or several people
simultaneously moving images around.
They had a "virtual pool" app - tap with your fingers and watch the
ripples, and the photo display app. Not exactly useful real-world
collaboration tools, but the screen technology was interesting. I just
looked at one of the videos online and it seems they can find e-gadgets
(cameras, cellphones) placed on the table via Bluetooth or something and
copy stuff across - at least in mockup.
Oh, yes - one of the tables had a "book" of Da Vinci drawings that Bill
bought the rights to, complete with a page-turning action of dragging
the page corner with your finger. Maybe we'll be able to spill electonic
juice on the book and make a permanent "stain", like pdfannotate
I'm not sure if the table has the resolution to actually write on things
with a stylus. Maybe. Maybe with a soldering iron if it's heat-sensitive
:-) But I presume you could use a Bluetooth keyboard.
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/index.html
Anyway, worth a look-in if your kids drag you to Disney ...
"innoventions" in "tomorrowland".
--
Andrew Daviel, TRIUMF, Canada
Tel. +1 (604) 222-7376 (Pacific Time)
Network Security Manager
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