Apple Announces iPad, Much To Nobody's Surprise. But It Looks Like A Winner.

Well, if you can believe it Apple has introduced a larger touch device being dubbed the iPad! Okay, so nobody is falling out of their seats with that announcement but the device appears to be another Apple thing of beauty with a sleek design and beautiful LCD display. Of course I've not had my hands on one and I'm judging this simply by the materials provided by the Apple propaganda machine, but if the device lives up to the video they'll have hit another home run.

A Wi-Fi version is promising to ship in the US by late March while the 3G version ships in April. The big surprise is the pricing which seems like a bargain:

               16GB 32GB 64GB

Wi-Fi        $499 $599 $699

Wi-Fi + 3G $629 $729 $829

This says it all...

All Of Your Remote Controls Are Belong To Us

Media Interaction Labs is taking touch control to the extreme by using in a Microsoft Surface like device, called Cristal, as an interface to everything in your living room. The system uses a ceiling mounted video camera to provide the user interface projected on a coffee table in the room. The user interacts with the television, lamps in the room, a Roomba, stereo, etc. by activating it on the video image. Check it out...

Rise Of The Smart Phone

According to Samsung Mobile Display, a Samsung Electronics company, the global smart phone market is anticipated to grow to 500 million units in 2012 up from 170 million in expected this year. The display maker also expects touchscreens to be used in about 50 per cent of major portable devices – mobile phones, digital cameras, navigations and digital media players – to be sold in 2013. This despite an overall slowing of the mobile market globally.

Source: The Globe and Mail.

Talk About Second Generation Surface At South By South West

The BBC is reporting that developers are talking about a second generation Microsoft Surface which has been dubbed Second Light and builds upon the original by having a second projector inside the device that can project images onto a layer above the surface of the screen. This modification will allow Second Light to overlay secondary images above those on the screen. It is rumored that the second generation will interpret gestures and movements without having to touch the screen through the use of infrared sensors and that it will employ high definition cameras for better detail.

"Everything is moving to touch and multi-touch so you had better jump on that bandwagon," Erik Klimczak, creative director of Clarity Consulting who develops for the surface told the conference of web developers.

Are The Mouse's Days Numbered?

Gartner thinks that the computer mouse is near it's end of life after nearly 40 years of tracking around screens, clicking, and dragging, according to this BBC report. "The mouse works fine in the desktop environment but for home entertainment or working on a notebook it's over," says analyst Steve Prentice. Taking it's place will be gestural computing like touchscreen and facial recognition interfaces. "You even have emotive systems where you can wear a headset and control a computer by simply thinking and that's a device set to hit the market in September." "This" says Prentice, "is all about using computer power to do things smarter."

On the flip side of the coin however is Rory Dooley senior vice president and general manager of Logitech's control devices unit, who obviously has a great stake in the survival of the mouse. Dooley says "The death of the mouse is greatly exaggerated," and that "The devices we use have been modified for our changing lifestyles but it doesn't negate the value of the mouse,"

Personally, I'm inclined to think that the mouse has a few more years in it. While there are plenty of new touch machines headed our way, the mouse doesn't leave your monitor with icky finger smudges... though I'm sure it's days are numbered.

Windows 7 Will Be Touch Enabled - Gates

According to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Windows 7 will start the revolution that drastically changes the way we interact with our computers, employing a fingertip interface among other improvements. According to Gates, "Today almost all the interaction is keyboard-mouse. Over years to come, the role of speech, vision, ink - all of those things - will be huge." Windows 7 is scheduled to release in 2009, not a moment too soon for many users who have given Vista the cold shoulder, though Ballmer says Microsoft has shipped 150 million copies. Gates who was speaking at the All Things Digital conference in San Diego says "The way you interact with the system will change dramatically," While Windows product manager Chris Flores has recently written in a blog post that "Touch is quickly becoming a common way of interacting with software and devices," and that "Touch-enabled surfaces are popping up everywhere including laptop touch pads, cell phones, remote controls, GPS devices and more." Not sure what impact this will have on emerging products like the Surface PC, seems like that becomes a little obsolete if all new PCs will be touch enabled, but you can't deny the appeal of the touch interface. BBC story here.

A better touch based technology?

From Apple's iPhone / iPod Touch to Microsoft's Surface PC, everyone is striving to change the way we interact with our devices and it seems that touch screen is the way to go. One big drawback to touch screen is that your hand momentarily obscures your view as you invoke action on the screen. Researchers at Mitsubishi, Microsoft, and the University of Toronto have teamed up to tackle this problem. Their answer appears to lie in a new technology dubbed LucidTouch, "users can choose to manipulate objects by touching a sensor pad on the back of the device; this allows users to resize images and text, as well as navigate around any graphical user interface without their hands getting in the way of the display." ars technica had an opportunity to view the prototype and has an article chronicling the experience.

Sharper touch screen on the horizon

CBC News is reporting that Sharp has developed, and will mass produce, touch-screen glass that is about half the thickness of today's generation of screens, and because it does not use a film covering it will produce sharper images. The technology embeds an optical sensor in each pixel of the screen, will allow for multiple touch points on a single screen at the same time, and has scanning technology built in. The screen will go into production next year and can be made up to ~30 centimetres in width.

Microsoft Surface Unveiled

Microsoft has apparently announced it's latest device, the 30" touch screen / coffee table sized / 150 pound Surface PC. I saw a video of an early prototype of this technology a year or so ago but it is now set to be released to the public. As I've stated before I'm an early adopter but, at between $5,000 and $10,000 us dollars, I don't think I'll be the first guy on my street to own one. The technology is very slick and intuitive, I particularly like the T-mobile application that is demoed. Check out the YouTube video!