Today I am going to tell you about Microsoft Surface, one of the best inventions I have ever seen till now. I myself was unaware of its preliminary launch on April 17, 2008. Thanks to Rahul Jain who suggested me to write an article about it. A few days back on Jan 6, 2011 International CES in Las Vegas, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Microsoft Corp. unveiled the next generation of the Microsoft Surface which is dubbed as the Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface. When it comes to Microsoft, I really get amazed. Well, anyone would get amazed about products developed by a company whose corporate campus has more than 100 buildings scattered over 261 acres.
What is Microsoft Surface?
To be precise enough, Wikipedia says Microsoft Surface is a multi-touch, multi-user device allowing its users to manipulate digital content by the use of gesture recognition. It is a table-top computer which has no mouse, no and keyboard. It works only on touch. There are many such devices which are popular like the Notion Ink’s Adam Tablet, Hp Slate or the Olive Pad. But Microsoft is totally different from these Gadgets. Let us see how:
As already mentioned, it is a multi-touch muti-user device. So more than one user can operate by touch on the same device. It is not a small handy device. It has a 40-inch display and is like a table onto which you can keep objects like a cup of coffee, pen or even a digital device. And to be amazed (again!) it would sense the objects placed above it. It has been developed with Pixel Sense Technology which gives LCD panels the power to see without the use of cameras. It functions on a Core 2 Duo Processor and has a 2GB RAM. It also has Five cameras with infrared filters – net resolution of 1280 x 960. It weighs 150 pounds.
Connectivity
It has Wired Ethernet 10/100 and wireless 802.11 b/g and Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity.
How does it work?
You would obviously wonder how a Gadget can actually SEE through the LCD panel. The fact beyond this “seeing” is the infrared sensors. The LCD panel has pixels all over its surface. Each and every pixel acts as an infrared sensor which could sense the objects placed above it. This can rather be called as a “magical sense“.
What can you do With the Microsoft Surface?
It allows users to share, collaborate and explore together on this large, thin display that recognizes fingers, hands and other objects placed on the screen. You can do many amazing tasks like:
- Place your finger on the color palette and draw with your finger on the screen in the same color.
- Touch the Blue color and you can draw the sky. touch the green color and you can draw the Grass.
- Using its object recognition, you can place any object on its screen and Microsoft Surface recognizes it all.
Some Utilities which you better not miss reading
You can place a digital camera on its screen and all the photos of the camera are displayed on the surface. You can resize the images using your fingers. Just touch the image corners with your hands and drag to resize the image.
Next, you can place your mobile phone on the screen. Move the images(which you took from the digital camera) into the mobile phone. By this, you have just copied those images into your Mobile Phone. So you have copied images from your digital camera to your mobile phone just by dragging them with your hands.
Commercial Uses
Microsoft Surface is more suitable for Commercial purposes and is useful for Restaurants, games, shops, Entertainment and Banking as it provides a new medium of interaction between the corporate sector and the people. The video below explains a few more features of the Microsoft Surface.
Price: Microsoft Surface’s price ranges from $5000 to $10000 depending on its use.
So what are you opinions about Microsoft Surface? Do comment below 🙂