Jun 05 2007
Lots of ideas for how to use Microsoft Surface
There are lots of blogs reporting on Microsoft’s new Surface product but Michael has a great post where he describes a wide range of collaboration related scenarios that it could support, definitely worth a read.
However I can’t help but think that Surface is a bit like Telepresence, a technology that will be reserved for a very small number of scenarios. Personally I’m more interested in the application of technologies that will impact on most of us.
My take on Surface is that I would be more excited by a vertical version. I know it wouldn’t have the benefit of being able to interact with things placed on it, but being vertical it would benefit from being:
- Larger
- Allowing more people to interact with it
- Providing for a more vibrant and interactive experience, because people could interact with the whole surface more easily (with the horizontal version people get in each others way a lot)
- Easier to see from a distance, in a “war room” type of environment
All that said - except from the very richest of collaboration scenarios I really like to see solutions that work well from the desk, and with multiple monitors now so affordable I think it’s easy to envision some very rich experiences.
What about a table that was mounted on some sort of arm to operate vertically when required.
When using Surface vertically though, you’ll surley end up with tired arms.
That might work, i’m not so concerned about the tired arms, more about the fact that for a group of people collaborating around a table for some of them everything is upside down and for everyone something is probably out of reach.
I found Microsoft Surface for the wall. The guys from INTOI work on next generation flipcharts:
http://www.intoi.net
Intoi in youtube