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Promised Microsoft Tablet 'No Thicker Than Sheet of Glass'

Posted by timothy on from the depends-how-thick-the-glass-is dept.

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."

11 of 352 comments (clear)

  1. will believe when i see it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'll believe it when I see it. Otherwise it's just vaporware that will clog blogs with nonsensical hype.

    1. Re:will believe when i see it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      what ever happened to the Origami Project?

      It folded.

    2. Re:will believe when i see it by gurner · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Say what you like about Apple, if they announce it you can buy it shortly after.

    3. Re:will believe when i see it by Hognoxious · · Score: 5, Funny

      what ever happened to the Origami Project? It really looked like it had potential.

      It looked good on paper.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  2. No thicker than... by pookemon · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
    1. Re:No thicker than... by Thanshin · · Score: 5, Funny

      A sheet of glass like in a picture frame (2mm) or like in an Aquarium (Several cm's).

      Marketing: "I said it'll be no thicker than a sheet of glass."
      I+D: "That's retarded, we're not even close."
      CEO: "Didn't the nuclear bunkers from those desert tests had a window towards the explosion?"
      Marketing: "Half as thick as a sheet of glass!"

    2. Re:No thicker than... by grim-one · · Score: 5, Funny

      Osaka's Aquarium has 30cm thick plate glass. The tablet may be thicker than it is tall or wide =)

  3. how thick? by dark+grep · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:how thick? by Cidolfas · · Score: 5, Funny

      My favorite is from the show How It's Made.

      They said, "when complete it weighs 10 pounds, about the weight of a full-grown cat."

      For the next 2 years, my roomates and I refered to weights in terms of full-grown cats.

      --
      I am become /dev/null, destroyer of data.
  4. Hey! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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!

  5. Re:Doesn't anyone check on marketting? by DerekLyons · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    No, only the pedantic types with an axe to grind, time on their hands, and karma to whore will actually ask how thick the sheet will be. The rest of us will assume "somewhere in the general vicinity of normal window or auto glass", since that's what the phrase "as thick as a sheet of glass" usually means.