Yeah but Apple invented fingers so they are suing Jeff Han for patent violations.
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Microsoft to Acquire Multi-Touch Pioneer Perceptive Pixel
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Yeah but Apple invented fingers so they are suing Jeff Han for patent violations.
Agreed, that's pretty cool.
Interestingly enough, Mitsubishi sold a hundred such multi-user devices back in 2000-2001.
http://www.merl.com/projects/DiamondTouch/
I'm assuming that's why kdarling posted it.
I posted the timeline as a visual aid for people wondering how long that multi-touch had been worked on before Han's TED demo in 2006.
Why was the remote invented? So people don't have to lift their ass off the couch. That's why people like Ballmer got fat. Now you are telling people, hey drop that remote that made you so comfortable (fat) for all those years and actually move around the room while watching your TV (or other) screen?
Sure we do need the exercise but I think Ballmer has it backwards. This is like trying to get yourself to fit with the device by forcing you to move. The device should work around your lifestyle. Most people don't want to move when watching TV. I think Ballmer and co forgot this.
So what, did the first electronic computers appear just after WW2, look how long before the Apple 1 was made.
Powerpoint for the 21st century
Reading this begs the obvious question: Why? Why would Microsoft be interested in buying a company involved in this technology when they've already tried and failed to launch a humungous coffee table using their own version: surface? It's redundant. CNN has already got one, and it's making fools of the users on a regular basis.
Are they now admitting surface was garbage? Are they getting ready to have another go? Do they really think it was the tech that was at fault? Did they not learn that it was the concept was flawed?
We all know this is the replacement for the once expensive and now easily affordable [and awful] projector solutions, allowing dull morons to deliver dreary Powerpoint presentations - waving their arms about instead of laser pens. Do they really imagine it will make them or their presentations any more appealing?
If Betjeman were alive he'd kill himself.
Reading this begs the obvious question: Why? Why would Microsoft be interested in buying a company involved in this technology when they've already tried and failed to launch a humungous coffee table using their own version: surface? It's redundant. CNN has already got one, and it's making fools of the users on a regular basis.
Are they now admitting surface was garbage? Are they getting ready to have another go? Do they really think it was the tech that was at fault? Did they not learn that it was the concept was flawed?
We all know this is the replacement for the once expensive and now easily affordable [and awful] projector solutions, allowing dull morons to deliver dreary Powerpoint presentations - waving their arms about instead of laser pens. Do they really imagine it will make them or their presentations any more appealing?
If Betjeman were alive he'd kill himself.
Wow. I never knew that. It looks like their implementation was a bit clunky. But I still think the concept is valid. I'm surprised Apple (of all companies) didn't adopt something like this, with their focus on team work and collaboration. Maybe Jobs' love of whiteboards took precidence.
Does your anti Apple bias really not allow you to see beyond your prejudice when presented with something that's truly irrelevant?
But to respond to your question, the answer is simple. Most intelligent people would assume it was a hoax, 1st of April, or that Apple had been taken over by Ballmer.
Touch screen technology is good for small devices where surface real-estate is at a premium, public information points [though very unhealthy germ spreaders], and fun play solutions for kids and people with severe learning difficulties. And that's it.
The rest of us know that placing a human directly in front of the screen waving their arms about like an idiot is a distraction from whatever is on the screen. Therefore, and understand this very clearly, Apple would never consider it a viable solution - to anything.
But Ballmer clearly still does. Despite his pasting with the giant coffee table debacle [that's now surrendered its benighted name to two tablet devices running different operating systems], he's having a second go with the big version. Some people are obviously too dumb to learn from their mistakes, and others'.
Again, you make his point, that Apple did not invent multi-touch, just like they didn't invent computers.
I think you're renforcing his point.
And in the process, delivering the two most popular and human friendly products ever, which have in turn spawned a million wannabe imitators. It's not what you invent that counts in business, it's what you deliver... and make a profit from. Everything else, including [especially] market share, is window dressing.
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Again, you make his point, that Apple did not invent multi-touch, just like they didn't invent computers.
So what? what's your point?
What you failed, and probably still fail, to realize is that touch is extremely limited in its use case, compared to visual solutions. Touch is a step-stone technology at best. Visual solutions allow for non-touch solutions, it allows for visual recognition of objects, it allows for stacking of objects etc. Further, by being able to see what you are doing, it knows that your right index finger is always your right index finger, no matter how you move your hands etc. Take any brush, pen, tool, whatever. Use it. Short sample from a very long list you'd spend a lot of time and resources implementing using "touch".
That said, the first implementation of the Surface was hardly ideal. Then again, technology decades ahead of its time rarely are. Thats not why you do them.
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Interestingly, the first point in the timeline is directly connected to MSFT.
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Yet another thing largely enabled by the fact that Surface (PixelSense) doesn't rely on touch, but on the screen actually seeing what people are doing. Even if you switch places, cross arms what ever, chances are the screen knows exactly what is going on.
What you failed, and probably still fail, to realize is how little my original post had to do with yours. I never said that multitouch was any better than its visual counterparts, nor did I state that multitouch isn't limited. It is. If you reread my comment, you'll see that I said cameras are the least efficient approach to multitouch; they add bulk, they must be placed a distance from the screen, and they're more expensive (especially in large numbers, like hundreds). These pitfalls can be best demonstrated by the fact that the original Microsoft Surfaces sold so poorly that they were replaced by Microsoft's future line of capacitive touch (presumably) tablets.
My point is, and was, that your laughter merely reflects your ignorance. Because if you really got it, what reason would you have to laugh? By restating your "efficiency argument", and making arguments based on sales, you're just putting the final nail in the ignorance coffin.
By your logic, flipping through PARC history would be comedy at its best. Great thinking. Really.
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For those interested:
http://vimeo.com/31899108
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVhgUs3_RGU
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Flipping through PARC history was comedy at its best; didn't you see that scene in Pirates of Silicone Valley where the CEO of Xerox looked at the team demoing the first mouse + GUI like they were a bunch of lunatics? It was hysterical! My point was that, although visual solutions have far more potential than multitouch, it was horribly inefficient to use them in the original Surface.
That doesn't mena visual technology hasn't/won't become something else that actually is awesome. BTW, have you seen the Leap Motion? Looks fantastic!
Flash forward 30 years, and here you are, just as ignorant as the CEO. In other words, the joke is on you.
And yes, i have seen it. Neat, but just another dead-end in my view*. Might turn out being a useful stepping stone though. The sooner we see the use in re-thinking computing, the better; in that sense, Leapmotion can certainly do good.
* Less so than touch, i should add. further, can't say i have done that much research on it, so i could be missing something here. But given that i see issues just looking at it, the device as such - i.e., the particular implementation of the idea, rather than the idea itself - seems flawed in the long run.
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How am I ignorant? The joke was that the CEO was too stupid to realize the mouse was going to play a major role in the future of computing, yet he passed it up. I understood that, and I understand that visual technology could have an impact on our own futures. It's gotten to where you seem to be bashing me for the sake of it rather than attempting to make any sort of valid point.
Like the CEO before you, by not realizing what you have in front of you. Unless your whole "this is funny"-feeling was rooted in "this will never sell", in which case ill opt for replacing ignorant with mere stupid. And i apologize for phrasing myself so bluntly, i do not mean to offend you. I just find it sad that people seem so incapable of thinking things through before saying them. MSFT, a billion dollar company employing some of the brightest people in the world, clearly sees value in pursuing this type of research - maybe, just maybe, they do have a point, even though you can't see it....
...just like the CEO of Xerox*.
* Xerox PARC is a great analogy in several ways. Many, even most, of the projects carried out at PARC had slim market potential. Heck, for every sensible thing i've read about, there are many more "laughable" things - and being in IS, i have come across quite a few PARC projects over the years. And in the end, that is why PARC managed to do more for technology than most, if not all.
Except, as I've said a few times before, I laughed at it's inefficiency. I've already stated that I understand how great this technology could be, but it was horribly misunderstood when implemented in the Microsoft Surface. The "brightest people" in the world seem to agree with that, as they have completely changed the Microsoft Surface.
They haven't completely changed the Surface (assuming we are talking about the Surface aka PixelSense). Its just that technology moves forward, making things doable today in different ways than they were in the past. So yes, it was big, but it allowed them to do what they needed to do, given them an advantage now when the same thing can be done sans the bulkiness (and even more so, when these things become marketable). So no, the only horrible misunderstanding here is yours.
Laughing at "its inefficiency" is "not getting it". Thus, i hear what you say, but even more so, i hear what you are not saying, which is what is truly laughable if anything.
I'm talking about Microsoft's Surface, which has been changed into a line of tablet computers, utilizing multitouch (or some variant) displays.
Laughing at its inefficiency is getting it; even Microsoft's best and brightest got it when they decided to revamp the surface. I understood the potential of the technology, but I knew it was misapplied in the first iteration of Surfaces.
Obviously you're incapable of getting it, so i see no point in taking this further.
You're confused by the reuse of the name. They're two totally different products.
All Microsoft did was switch the name "Surface" over to tablets, and rename the original furniture device as "PixelSense" instead.
The "PixelSense" is still sold for those who need a literal tabletop device in their lobby, bar, store, etc.
What a fantastic way to win any argument!
Oh, thanks for explaining that.