ephoenix

Microsoft unveiled their latest top-secret project recently, dubbed “Surface”. Surface is a touchscreen computer Microsoft is aiming at a commercial audience. Ultimately however, this product is nothing more than a novelty.

Microsoft says Surface “turns an ordinary tabletop into a vibrant, dynamic surface that provides effortless interaction with all forms of digital content through natural gestures, touch and physical objects.” (Link) Does sound cool, doesn’t it, but has Microsoft forgot what a table does? Right now, for example, I’m sitting with my feet up on the coffee table, I don’t want this table to a be friggin computer. Now Microsoft IS aiming this product primarily at a commercial audience, for example, in a hotel lobby, and this does make a bit more sense then replacing the home coffee table, but this use is fairly limited as well. Nevermind how bulky and ugly this “table” is, one of the biggest flaws with this product is unfortunately completely unavoidable. Touchscreens get dirty. Think of how dirty touchscreens get when used by one person, now think of the general public using one. Yeah, fingerprints and dirt galore. Microsoft also shows videos of a restaurant use, where ingredients or nutritional information would be shown. I’m not sure if you’re as messy as me, but I can picture plenty of drink rings and spilled food all over this beautiful touchscreen.

You also have to question whether we really need all this information. Have we become so obsessed that we need to known the nutritional information of our restaurant meals? Are we so busy that we need to check news and sync our PDAs in a hotel lobby? It might be cool, and I can’t blame Microsoft for trying to get people to rely on another one of their technologies, but all this information gets in the way of life. Can you imagine having one of these as your table at a restaurant? Now instead of having to talk to the person next to you, you can both just stare at the table and play with the cool, but useless, features.

Ultimately, surface is a cool piece of technology, but all the research that went into this product could be much better used elsewhere. The ability to recognize devices is quite nice, but there’s no need to make a coffee table out of it. Why not make the next cool syncing and charging peripheral for the desktop? Why not improve the Tablet PC and make it somewhat usable? I do applaud Microsoft for expanding from the software business and it does show that they are trying to grow beyond their quickly dying Windows product line, but Microsoft needs to better analyze the needs of their customer, and whether their great ideas are really worth developing. I can see many other products coming out of the research done for surface, but surface as a standalone product, is completely pointless.

My only question is, what happens when my table crashes?

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