“My God — it’s full of stars!”
Last May, some smart wag decided the thing Apple absolutely needed to build a giant iPad. It would be the size of a TV and you’d lug it around the house because I guess it would have a handle and it was a seriously bad idea.
So of course Lenovo, bless their hearts, went and built it.
If this wasn’t the middle of January, I’d swear Lenovo was having a little April Fool’s fun with us. But no:
Sorry for the screencap of the press release, but you absolutely had to see the thing in action. And it’s a steal at just $1,700!
Remember the incredible original Microsoft Surface? It was the $10,000 answer to the question nobody was asking: “How can I put a PC into a tabletop Ms. Pac-Man machine from 1982?” That thing flopped so badly, Microsoft figured they could re-use the name because nobody would remember.
I’m guessing Lenovo will be able to recycle the name of their new beast, which I’ve already forgotten.
UPDATE: I scrolled back up to look, and it’s called “Horizon,” as in, “it blots out the.”
A Surface on steroids?
Hoge:
Which version of the Surface?
The original Microsoft incarnation, which was an actual table with built-in screen and various sensors (and a hefty price tag in the thousands)?
Or the new Microsoft Tablet, which is the table with an extra ‘T’, built in screen, less sensors, and a less-hefty-though-still-hefty price tag?
Well, I’ve just started using Win8 seriously now for about 4 days, using it to brush up on my knowledge of .net, and I’ve come away with a few things right away. First of all, that the mouse interface for the start screen is a bit kludgy, but using it as a touch interface or hybrid touch/mouse, it is actually very easy to use, and feels very natural–so I wouldn’t bother installing win8 on a pc w/out a touch screen.
The second is that they need to revamp the Metro version of IE so that all the browser windows open as separate processes rather than as tabs in a single process. A few times I’ve closed IE, when I really wanted to just close a single tab.
Also, Bryan Boyko’s claim that “Windows 8 is Unusable” is, frankly, crap. I’ve found that after about an hour of use, all the touch gestures to bring up the charms bar, the list of running metro apps, etc was pretty damned intuitive. I really expected more of a learning curve to figure out the touch/mouse interface, and that wasn’t the case at all.
As far as the giant tablets go, the 27″ one seems kind of impractical, for battery life, fragility, etc. However, I could see lots of uses for a truly large screen mounted on a table or wall.
It’s like someone read my mind when I thought to myself, “Man, I wish I could carry my desktop PC into the living room and lay it on my cluttered coffee table to play some games.”
You know what else can bring everyone together to share media? The television. You see, through the magic of wireless technologies and networking, media can now be viewed on the TV and families don’t need to crowd around the table (or eisel with wheels) like it’s a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos.
Nothing is more explanatory of how stupid Microsoft’s strategy is, than the actual implementation of it. I know that’s kinda obvious but somehow it still escapes Microsoft.
A 27″ touchscreen — paired with some decent software that I would trust neither M$ nor Apple to produce, incidentally — would finally provide a workable replacement for a whiteboard/projector combo. At $1700 apiece, it is plainly cheap. Thus far the whiteboard was an irreplaceable component of engineering meetings, and an absolute pain in the butt. Damn… I wonder if I should budget for a pair of these beasts as soon as they come to market.
…I am budgeting already. Compare that to an overseas trip to talk things through with [remote] engineers, and you will understand. Thank you for the link, Steve!
Bingo!
The first time I sat down with my touch-enabled laptop, my daughters asked if we could all play on it at the same time. When I said “no, it doesn’t work that way”, they asked “why”. My answer was “it should work that way, shouldn’t it?” I hadn’t thought of it as a whiteboard replacement per se, but I collaborative meetings did occur to me.
We’ve gotten so used to the idea of one user per interface, but I don’t see any reason it has to be that way.
We’re gonna need a bigger boat