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Promised Microsoft Tablet 'No Thicker Than Sheet of Glass'
Barence writes Microsoft will deliver a touchscreen PC that is 'no thicker than a sheet of glass' within the next three years, according to the company's principal researcher. The device will be the next generation of Microsoft's Surface project, which currently houses a touchscreen PC in a deep cabinet that uses cameras to detect hand gestures and objects placed on the screen. According to Microsoft's Bill Buxton, 'Surface will become no thicker than a sheet of glass. It's not going to have any cameras or projectors because the cameras will be embedded in the device itself.' Microsoft is developing a new screen technology to make this possible. 'The best way to think about it is like a big LCD where there's a fourth pixel in every triad. So there's red, green, and blue pixels giving you light, and a fourth pixel which is a sensor that will capture stuff,' Buxton claims in an interview with The Globe and Mail."
how thick can glass be?
I'll believe it when I see it. Otherwise it's just vaporware that will clog blogs with nonsensical hype.
"No thicker than a sheet of glass"
I've never seen a sheet of glass a Microsoft researcher couldn't outwit.
A sheet of glass like in a picture frame (2mm) or like in an Aquarium (Several cm's). Maybe, being Microsoft, it starts out as thick as the picture frame glass, but it rapidly expands to be as thick as Aquarium glass. Then it breaks.
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
The pool fencing around my patio is 10mm thick. The floor of the Auckland tower has glass 25mm thick. So how thick is thick? A pretty pointless claim if you ask me. And three years? In Internet terms it may as well be 30 years. A stupid press release all round.
It's not going to have any cameras or projectors because the cameras will be embedded in the device itself.[...]The best way to think about it is like a big LCD where there's a fourth pixel in every triad. So there's red, green, and blue pixels giving you light, and a fourth pixel which is a sensor that will capture stuff.
Preorder your Microsoft Telescreen today!
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
To be even this thin, it seems like either A) the electronics would need to be embedded in the glass or B) the back of the glass would need to be the printed circuit board itself
Nobody buy an iPad!
Let's all wait for this promised invention from Microsoft, which will be much better than anything we can get today, and is coming Real Soon Now!
I think that the "within the next three years" could represent quite a long time in terms of the evolution of tablets, so I'm not that impressed.
a fourth pixel which is a sensor that will capture stuff
Didn't someone here on Slashdot have a patent titled, "A Method and Process of Doing Things with Stuff" . . . ?
It looks like Microsoft might have an intellectual property problem here . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Transparent Aluminum.
They have their shit tight this time.
Parts of this concept seem awfully familiar...
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/06/04/26/1536212/Apples-All-Seeing-Screen
How can you preview the scan when the scanned object is covering the display?
Within 3 years people will forget about this promise, Microsoft will change its mind and technology will deliver something completely different from tablets.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
When you have nothing to compete against a product, just post a press release containing promises about whatever the marketing department can come up with.
Given Microsoft's non-relevancy in the mobile area, this might fail horribly this time though.
Minix runs in Bochs on my old 486 with NT 4.0 installed.
Does that mean we can have windows running on a window?
You mean like this?
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/06/04/26/1536212/Apples-All-Seeing-Screen
Though to be fair, a patent filing is a far cry from the work of a marketing spinster.
I don't think its a very radical claim. My sons ipod touch is pretty thin. Now if they can make "Minority Report" tablets... Transparent and in arbitrary sizes. Drag and drop objects from any to any.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
So in addition to the three light emitting colors that come standard, their LCDs contain a new, light capturing color. This isn't news, squant has been known for years.
This is great. I can't wait to get one. I will carry it in my backpack while I fly around in my jet pack which will be powered by cold fusion.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
and as long as a piece of string
"...that will capture stuff..."
I've got one of those. It's called a keyboard, but its primary function seems to be to capture stuff. Cookie crumbs, coffee spills, cigarette ashes...
Does anyone else find the prospect of running Windows on a window to be a bit surreal? What's next, wearable computers so you could have a Macintosh on your rain coat?
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Marketting: So, how thick will it be?
Development: X cms thick
Marketting: Cool, that's almost as thick as the glass in my family picture frame, "No Thicker Than Sheet of Glass" - perfect
Development: Uh, but won't that be ambigious - and since the majority of people who are going to care enough to read this are going to have more intelligence than a potted plant - and actually question how thick the glass will be... won't this make us look like a bunch of idiots?
Marketting: Sheet of Glass! Perfect.
Yes, let's make up more silly claims that even the marketing whack-jobs didn't dare put in the press release....
Don't you get your /. username revoked for posting this kind of shit?
"It's the thickness. Once we figure this out it's game over!"
It's the software, stupid.
The original article is discussing Surface's touch panel and display, which are currently a weird hodge-podge of tech, being shrunk down into a single panel which is as thin as a sheet of glass. Nothing the engineer says suggests that the whole device will be that size. Furthermore the "three year" comments are about Surface's possible consumer launch, and nothing to do with the new panel at all. PC Pro's blog dump is completely dire, read the second link.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
or is MS so much at their wits' end that they don't even know which feature to hype for their "we'll do that in 3 years, honest, you can stop buying iPads now" PR campaigns ?
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Microsoft will deliver a touchscreen PC that is 'no thicker than a sheet of glass'
That's smashing!
Apparently, since you can get glass over 60cm thick, at least as thick as the person who used that description. I suppose they'll be telling us that the screen is as long as a piece of string next.
If they use a x86 to compete with the ARM tablets it will have shorter battery life and run hot. If they use ARM (or something else giving good mA/mips), then people won't understand why it can't run their Windows software. If it looks and feels like Windows (and actually code wise, is Windows) but can't run Windows software, people won't like it. The platform is Windows software. It's the closed source curse, you are stuck on the hardware and API things are compiled for. Of course their is byte code, but then they will be competing again other tablets of similar spec, but with their apps byte coded while the others (Apple/Linux) are native. If that happens, bet MS's own apps are native for each platform, but they advice developers to use .NET to cover all MS platforms. But even then, are most consumers going to understand the difference between .NET apps and native apps? This to me has all the marks of a money blackhole while they try and complete in the tablet space.
Now, can I get it with a decent OS on it, or will it only work with Windows?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I know of other MS products that resemble a (fragile) sheet of glass. Windows, anyone?
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Not commenting on this potential vaporware, but embedded cameras in LCD screens might single handedly make video conferencing pleasant. Presently, the distance between the camera and screen mean video chatting is essentially an exercise in watching another person watch their computer while having a conversation with you.
Apart from latency / bandwidth issues, I think that is the largest thing that has prevented video chat from taking off. It's not at all like talking face to face with a real human being.
... Does it run Linux?
If I had mod points I would mod you up!
I don't remember that Microsoft published anything really new the last decade or so.
Sure, the Kinect stuff sounds good - on paper. But when I actually saw it in action on the GDC Europe and noticed that they had an instructor in every booth to teach people how to actually use it and afterwards still people failed to use it properly, just because it doesn't seem to work all that intuitive, I noticed that this will be just another failure. Apart from this I really fail to see any serious innovation coming from Microsoft at all. They are quite ok at copying whatever someone else has built before, but that's about it.
If anyone will deliver such a ground breaking device then it will be Google, Apple or some Chinese startup whose name no one has heard of before - but definitely not Microsoft.
That's ages in this business! If MS is talking about next-generation features in this tablet, well, that's what the competition will offer by then as well. What happened three years ago? Well, we saw the first pictures of the iPhone. Yeah, I'm talking about the iPhone "1".
If MS is giving these timeframes, it seems to just be about wanting to create some buzz and focus on Microsoft, rather than them willing to discuss product releases.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
So what Microsoft are saying is that in three years time, Slashdoters will be writing an article comparing which is more fragile - the hardware or the Operating System. For the first time people really will be able to use the moniker "broken Windows"!?!
Take Nobody's Word For It.
Yes, let's make up more silly claims that even the marketing whack-jobs didn't dare put in the press release....
Specifically?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
It's not going to have any cameras or projectors because the cameras will be embedded in the device itself.
So... it doesn't have cameras because it has cameras?
That's a whole new level of whoosh for me.
I call Longhorn...
a big LCD where there's a fourth pixel in every triad
That word... I do not think it means what you think it means.
Fuck everything... we’re doing five pixels per triad!
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Like this http://nizen.net/ ?
Maine Coons are similar to Forest Cats and I can say from experience that I had an 11kg male that wasn't overweight. There are reports of up to 15kg without being overweight, but I haven't met a real life one. One of my female Maine Coons is only 4.5 kg though.
Incidentally, a wet Maine Coon looks a lot smaller than a dry one!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
In retrospect, this article is Redundant, making my post redundant, making this post mod Redundant. Next time, improve the /. moderation system by spending positive points.
My desk is a 8mm thick piece of tempered glass. I have a round blank cut from a 3/4" (19mm) plate in my workshop (that's going to be used to make a telescope mirror). They really should be more specific.
Sheets of glass vary in thickness. How thin is thin?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Maybe they are talking about a device no thicker than glass because they're building it on a sheet of glass. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin-film_transistor
So there's red, green, and blue pixels giving you light, and a fourth pixel which is a sensor that will capture stuff ...
Add a fifth pixel to burn stuff up, lift airplanes, and kill the professor from Gilligan's Island, and you've got an Interocitor.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
How long is a piece of string?
How trampy is ( choose one of B. Spears, K. Perry, other of your choice ) ?
How evil is Microsoft?
So many questions... so few answers.
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
In other news, Corning has just produced the world's thickest glass. This new glass, dubbed "Sub-Surface", is claimed to be as thick as a Microsoft tablet. Details at 11.
I was gonna get an iPad but now that someone has vaguely described a competing product I think I'll just hold on to my money for up to 3 years consider buying it instead.
A BSOD on a tablet as thin as a sheet of glass is still a BSOD.
-- http://www.doczayus.com/
...to break Windows.
Thanks for godwining a perfectly good topic.
I voted [60] Stephen Conroy. Cross fingers ;).
I DID vote [60] Stephen Conroy and he is STILL Minister for Fascism, Censorship and the Ideology Driven Nanny State.
Cryonics - Keep cool and carry on.
.
Just more of the usual Microsoft FUD.
A built in laser pointer! Not the red or green kind, but one of those purple ones that can set a cat on fire if you hold it there long enough. Then it has a built in gyro-tron gps that links to your bing account and shows you a little bouncing paperclip on the screen to help you navigate through city streets, yeah! And it's waterproof too, did we mention that! Yeah, to.. 500 feet! And the battery doubles as a shuriken in case you are ever attacked by ninjas in japan (lookin' at you Steve, baby!). We plan to start shipping in ..uh.. Oh hey! Look! Who let that elephant in here!?
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
I'm so confused now...
Are those the same years as in 'Spam Will Be Solved In 2 Years'?
What's that in _earth_ years?
'Surface will become no thicker than a sheet of glass. It's not going to have any cameras or projectors because the cameras will be embedded in the device itself.'
So it does have a camera but it doesn't have a camera...wtf?
So if they hold true to what Bill Gates said (http://www.esato.com/archive/t.php/t-54833,1.html) back when they were just a software company, this device should cost us nothing.
The other thing is Microsoft's last announcement of something like this (the tablet PC, wasn't it?), turned out to be something you couldn't buy. It was a reference platform and a set of specifications that others could build to.
So I'm not holding my breath that we'll be able to buy one of these.
Michael Coyne
http://turthalion.blogspot.com
secure than a sheet of glass either.
Yeah right, but remember:
just like other "groundbreaking" technologies by microsoft, like Natal, they'll start removing features ...
"oh, no, it won't support more than two fingers for now..." "oh, sorry, it will be a bit thicker" .. "oh sorry, that awesome refresh rate? nope, not this time.." or similar things.
I hope I'm mistaken though =D
None is overstating it, but MS does put a lot more into R&D:
http://gizmodo.com/5486798/research-and-development-apple-vs-microsoft-vs-sony
MS isn't working on this. They are claiming they are.
Why?
To get some startup, full of bright people, to actually build one first, so they can then buy them out, and sell the product.
Please, MS doesn't make anything, they pretend to.
They do though, buy out startups and stuff.
Be seeing you...
"But how many Libraries will it hold?"
It will hold any amount of libraries you can imagine, because it is an imaginary product.
Quote from the article: "Microsoft will deliver a touchscreen PC that is 'no thicker than a sheet of glass' within the next three years, according to the company's principal researcher."
In the next 3 years? Do you believe that? That's the most extreme vaporware announcement I've ever seen.
A prediction that considers the physics: If you drop it, it will shatter, because the bending forces will be extreme, and something thin cannot counteract those forces.
Thanks for godwining a perfectly good topic.
Yeah? Well that's like... your opinion, man.
That posts really held the thread together.
You can't take the sky from me...
plate, bullet-proof, automobile or stained?
--- Void where prohibited. Your mileage may vary. ---
How can you preview the scan
You look at the document before you put it on the screen.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Let's not forget, Scrameustache, that citing Godwin, BetterSense, for uh, posting, you know, on Slashdot, that isn't legal either.
And it'll be made by Apple.
A tablet computer is partly a sheet of glass, the touchscreen display. If the entire tablet computer is no thicker than a glass sheet, it will be difficult or impossible to design in such a way that it can resist bending forces.
Thanks for improving a perfectly good thread with a Big Lebowski reference.
(BTW, reminded of how on Colbert a couple weeks ago, he used some Lebowski clips to comment on the story of a drunk guy breaking into a mosque and peeing on the prayer rugs)
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
They're calling it a telescreen?
I think this technology will be really popular in the Lower Merion School District!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
. . . how many Libraries of Congress can it store?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Microsoft's problem is with software more than hardware. The Windows phones may not have been as slick as an iPhone, but the hardware sufficed in terms of durability, phone quality and screen. What did not suffice was/is the software, and I believe that is why Apple walked away with the smart phone market despite Microsoft's much earlier presence. Microsoft has existed in an environment for 30+ years in which poor or barely-passable software could lead to tremendous success. Those days are THANKFULLY over. Do they realize this? Or, just as Ringo Star claimed to be the world's best drummer (by association to the worlds most prevalent band) do Microsoft managers walk around confidently trumpeting that Windows is the greatest OS in the world?
Does it hurt to hear them lying? Was this the only world you had?
I voted [60] Stephen Conroy. Cross fingers ;).
I DID vote [60] Stephen Conroy and he is STILL Minister for Fascism, Censorship and the Ideology Driven Nanny State.
Whats the step after ballot box?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
You seem not to understand the problem. The problem is that in a very thin device including glass, it will be difficult to design a frame that resists bending enough to prevent breaking the glass.
Also, thin-ness less than perhaps 1/2 inch is a quality that is artificially desirable. Extremely thin designs are only good for people who want to intimidate other people with their "superior" equipment.
Of course, if a fragile device is handled gently enough, it won't break. Thin tablets will require more gentle handling. For those who understand they may have accidents, too thin is very unattractive.