A refurbished surface from Microsoft!

Thursday May 26, 2011 , 3 min Read

Well, if you thought the Microsoft Surface invented in the year 2007 was the end of the road, you would probably be wrong. It almost made people forget about it as it’s been a long time. But, Microsoft is back with a bang with a brand new version of the surface.Priced at $12,500,mutli touch computer,table-top,with a screen size increased by 10 inches, cheaper by $5k,more powerful internals and the underside made very thinner.

The all new Microsoft Surface (2011)

The LCD panel is 4 inches thick and bonded to 40 inches of Corning’s Gorilla Glass. It can either be placed horizontally on stands or on a vertical surface. Interestingly, a person can take it for a T.V when attested on a wall.

This phenomenon wouldn’t be possible without the panel being embedded with sensors right into it.Previosuly, this couldn’t be made and that happened to make this project unexciting way back in 2007, when it was invented.

But now, it directly comes off from the standard LCD line .This concept of having multiple cameras in appropriate positions has really made a difference unlike the old surface which had a lot of problems with arrangement of cameras (where in a zigzag way). The all new surface has lot of precision.

Take a look inside

There are 2 million sensors that are put into the panel. The sensors are placed one between another to differentiate between visible and infrared light. This really helps in a situation, wherein a paper is placed on the surface and it’s features are to be grasped. This phenomena of recognizing patterns is called PixelSense by Microsoft. It may not recognize a human’s finger print, but can at least specify the dimensions of a finger and differentiate from person to person. This itself is a rare achievement when it comes to surface technology.

Apart from hardware,Surface’s User Interface has been uplifted by many levels.It can now be used to browse through the internet,use applications unlike the old surface which had to be scrolled a lot to get the required application into picture.This has been solved by a technique which makes all the unused apps to be put up as a stack on a side of the screen and an application can just be tapped to get it into the main screen.

The UI adjusts according to the position from which the user unlocked the Surface and behaves accordingly.It’s all automated and the user shouldn’t be worried about the compatibility of it according to the instructions given.For example, if a person moves around a surface, he can just flip the screen to his direction with a single swipe from a corner of the screen.

It is also said that Bing is the default search engine on Surface. It even has the ability to be operated by multiple users at the same time, thanks to PixelSense. Searches can be made attached to specific objects using the same old tag identifying system.

At home ?

Microsoft is still researching in this regard but it’s currently not suitable for being used in the living room.

Here are the features of Surface