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CES: Microsoft shows off Surface 2.0

By | January 5, 2011, 2:16pm PST

Summary: Microsoft officials demonstrated an updated, thinner version of the Surface multi-touch tabletop computer at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) on January 5.

CES 2011

Microsoft officials demonstrated an updated, thinner version of the Surface multi-touch tabletop computer at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) on January 5.

Microsoft officials shared a few particulars on the next-generation Surface 2.0 device, which Samsung is manufacturing with Microsoft, according to reports, during an afternoon press conference at the show.

The new Surface is only four inches thick and uses Gorilla glass to make it more durable. (Officials said the new Surface includes the biggest single piece of Gorilla glass out there.) It also is horizontally and vertically mountable, making it more appealing than the current “big ass table” Surface tabletops that are on the market — and possibly an alternative to flat-screen TVs (or maybe even a nice adjunct to Microsoft TV, which many are expecting the company to unveil during CEO Steve Ballmer’s keynote at CES tonight.)

Istartedsomething blogger Long Zheng captured some images of the Surface 2.0 in his live blog of the Microsoft press conference. Here one from Zheng’s Flickr set:

(image credit: Long Zheng)

I’ve asked Microsoft for availability and pricing details for the new Surface tables. No word back so far.

I wondered aloud (in my blog) earlier this week whether Microsoft might show off some new Surface tablets at CES. The new thinner tables are not tablets, by a long stretch, but they seem more commercially viable than the current Surface systems — and I’d think more likely to attract developer interest.

I’m curious whether Microsoft and its partners will continue to downsize the Surface, moving forward, and how small it will be able to go….

Update: A couple more details on Surface 2.0, courtesy of WinRumours.com. WinRumours says the new Surface is running an AMD CPU and Windows 7. WinRumours also says the new Surface will ship in 2011.

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Topics

CES, Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft Corp., Surface Multi-touch, Tablets, Blogging, Notebooks, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Internet, Mary Jo Foley

Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

Disclosure

Mary-Jo Foley

Freelance journalist/blogger Mary Jo Foley has nothing to disclose. WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). I do not own Microsoft stock or stock in any of its partners or competitors. I have no business ventures that are sponsored by/funded by Microsoft or any of its partners or competitors.

Biography

Mary-Jo Foley

Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 25 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She has kept close tabs on Microsoft strategy, products and technologies for the past 10 years. In the late 1990s, she penned the award-winning "At The Evil Empire" column for ZDNet, and more recently the Microsoft Watch blog for Ziff Davis.

Got a tip? Send her an email with your rants, rumors, tips and tattles. Confidentiality guaranteed.

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RE: CES: Microsoft shows off Surface 2.0
dfwekrdfe49-24353615267611728846555800668083 Updated - 10th Nov
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Wow! MS Managed to do now what it was promising to do in about ...
P. Douglas Updated - 5th Jan 2011
... 3 years! That's very nice. MS also seemed to have done quite a bit of work, optimizing Windows for slates, as well in the areas of performance and energy efficiency. Still, the big question is will Ballmer anounce slates for sale now, that people will actually want to use?
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Don't count your chickens yet...
i8thecat 5th Jan 2011
@P. Douglas

Don't count your chickens yet... Last year Microsoft showed a Slate and said it would start shipping in 2010... So far, it's still vaporware... If they were serious about surface, they would have had a price estimate by now.

Regardless, people are not going to like it, you would have to sit close enough to be able to reach anywhere on the entire screen. And here is the rub, you would constantly have to reach all over the screen to use it. Most people don't buy a 46" HD LCD TV and then mount it 3 freet from their face nor watch it while it is resting in their lap. This one is not only vaporware, but its also a flop in its vapor state.
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RE: CES: Microsoft shows off Surface 2.0
Darkninja962@... 5th Jan 2011
@i8thecat
Surface is more of a research project still, not really a full fledged product. You can buy one right now if you want though, you've been able to for years, but Microsoft's only selling to companies not individual consumers.
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I believe MS Surface will finally take off
P. Douglas Updated - 5th Jan 2011
@i8thecat,

The HP Slate was actually released last year October.

As for MS surface, it can be mounted at any angle. It will be typically mounted horizontally, and be used as a collaboration table in a range of places. It could be used throughout stores for sales people to go over product items with customers; it could be used as kiosks in customer facing departments at most businesses; it could be used throughout schools and libraries as collaboration tables / kiosks. It could be used as collaboration / planning / meeting tables throughout business. The device could be placed on a swivel mount and double as a kiosk, as well as well electronic signage in stores. It could be used as an electronic coffee / collaboration table throughout homes.

Individual units could be mounted on walls (some could be TVs), and have Kinect type controllers mounted in them, allowing them to be controlled directly via touch, or at a distance using gestures. A grid of these units could be used to create an interactive wall, etc. Therefore MS Surface has a lot of potential.
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Becuase you have limited vision?
Mister Spock 5th Jan 2011
@i8thecat, it may not have occurred to you that just one of the functions would be as a teaching or conference room monitor, with the presenter or instructor touching the screen while others sit back a good 8 to 10 feet and just watch?

Or do you still believe that a laser pointer and a screen changing remote are still the best technologies?
plain
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Waste of Microsoft's time and effort
jscott418 6th Jan 2011
Microsoft needs to stop trying to impress with this surface technology in a large form and bring it down to a handheld design. If it cannot do that now considering where Apple is with the iPad I think they might as well trash the project.
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RE: CES: Microsoft shows off Surface 2.0
Rich Miles 5th Jan 2011
@P. Douglas Good call on the earlier thread. Very good call.
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RE: CES: Microsoft shows off Surface 2.0
bitcrazed 5th Jan 2011
@P. Douglas - no - Windows Slates will arrive with Windows 8 which is getting a major UI overhaul to make it much more touch friendly.
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Have you ever used one?
Richard Flude 5th Jan 2011
Whilst it's OK as a gimmick to show what passes for MS innovation, as a product it's hopeless.

Try using it is the varied lighting conditions of most spaces, not the controlled light environments required to make this donkey function.

Interestingly it suffers from the two product failures of kinect, size and lighting.

Surprising MS is still throwing money at it. But I guess with nothing else to announce they continue to showcase improvements in third party hardware.
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RE: CES: Microsoft shows off Surface 2.0
Rich Miles 5th Jan 2011
@Richard Flude "The two product failures of kinect..." heh. Original sales prediction 3 million. Revised sales prediction 5 million. Actual sales: 8 million. I think Microsoft can afford those types of failures.
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Actual sales?
Richard Flude 6th Jan 2011
You're quoting numbers stuffed into the channel not sales. Big difference. Can't wait fir the sales figures given this was MS big product announcement for 2010 and another USD10 billion in R&D;-)
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wow, a giant iPod touch! Hooray for MS! Hooray
ShazAmerica 5th Jan 2011
Who care what Balmer announces, he speaks nothing but crap anyway. I pray to God everyday that the idiots on MS' board, and the shareholders who've made nothing these past ten years keep Captain Balmer running the M.S. Titanic into the ground. Since Balmer took over my Apple stock is up about 1000%!
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RE: CES: Microsoft shows off Surface 2.0
bitcrazed 5th Jan 2011
@ShazAmerica - hold on there hoss.

While Microsoft's stock hasn't done much in the last 10 years, even though other one-time giants like Sun have crashed and burned in the meantime, Microsoft has continued to generate record revenues and - more importantly - profits each and every year except one.

Don't be so naive as to judge a company's performance on it's stock price - that's something that's entirely at the whim of a few thousand 22 year old high-risk junkie stock-brokers.

Judge a company's performance by its profits and revenues - that's the true measure of a company's success.
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bitcrazed, ShazAmerica has shown himself the fool here many a time
Mister Spock 5th Jan 2011
as he has made it abundently clear to all of us that he has not a clue as to what he posts on.

One day he will realize that those here have been laughing at him, and not with him.
plain
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RE: CES: Microsoft shows off Surface 2.0
windowseat 5th Jan 2011
If someone wants to judge Baller for Microsoft innovative pace. Look no further then Surface. Killer technology being starve to death by lack of a consumerization vision.

It's gone from a floor model tv to a first generation flat screen. C'mon man!
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"Only" four inches thick?
Zogg 5th Jan 2011
That certainly sounds like a lot to me. Apple has already shown us how thin a touch-device can be.

How much does it weigh, relative to a TV of comparable size?
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RE: CES: Microsoft shows off Surface 2.0
Qbt 5th Jan 2011
@Zogg

Uhm you do realize it isn't an iBauble and is a completely different type of device, right?
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I'm talking about its underlying technology, not its use.
Zogg 6th Jan 2011
@Qbt I don't see your point. Apple has shown the world that touch-devices can be both thin and light. That is completely separate to Apple then using that technology to create products such as the iPhone and iPad.
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From a current Apple ecosystem consumer
kenosha77a 5th Jan 2011
Don't write this product off so quickly. If surface gestures can be incorporated using Kinect technology and merged with an integrated TV home PC media center software type of control, than this could become a "must have product".

Of course, the above is an example of "Apple creative vision think" and I'm not too sure if Ballmer has the ability to drive this concept forward to a successful conclusion.
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But you can hook a Kinect up to a TV already
Zogg 6th Jan 2011
@kenosha7777

Surely the whole point of a Surface product is that you're actually touching it. So if you're touching it you don't need the Kinect, and if you're not touching it then you don't need Surface and can use your existing TV instead.
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RE: CES: Microsoft shows off Surface 2.0
kenosha77a 6th Jan 2011
@Zogg

If you mount this Surface Tablet in the vertical orientation and used it as a TV Media center hub, you wouldn't need to constantly clean the surface with a something. (Take it from an iPad owner .. the daily screen cleaning and drying with a microfiber cloth is a necessity.)

However, if the need arose for direct contact, this capability is built into this device.

To be fair, I don't really see a need for an oversized stationary tablet in a consumer environment. However, combined with other tech capabilities, the productivity potential increases substantially.
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Oops! You've just killed "touch" technology there!
Zogg 6th Jan 2011
@kenosha7777

"If you mount this Surface Tablet in the vertical orientation and used it as a TV Media center hub, you wouldn't need to constantly clean the surface with a something. (Take it from an iPad owner .. the daily screen cleaning and drying with a microfiber cloth is a necessity.)"

So the big problem with touch devices is that people put their grubby fingers all over them, and make them messy. Ouch. Better not to touch them in the first place then, eh? wink

When it comes to vertically mounted TV media centers, I think people solved the "need to touch" problem using something called a "remote control". Do you think people would prefer touch-screen technology over a remote? I certainly don't! And there is simply no way on Earth I'd ever spend an extra few thousand bucks on a TV with touchscreen technology that at best I'd never use, and at worst would encourage people to wipe their greasy fingers all over it.
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RE: CES: Microsoft shows off Surface 2.0
james347 5th Jan 2011
FAIL!
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RE: CES: Microsoft shows off Surface 2.0
james347 5th Jan 2011
Junk 2.0
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Why can't Apple innovate like this?
NonZealot 5th Jan 2011
Why is it that all Apple can do is copy 5 year old MS technology? Well, Apple is also one heck of a marketing machine.
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RE: CES: Microsoft shows off Surface 2.0
kenosha77a 5th Jan 2011
@NonZealot
At least Apple brings to market .. in a timely fashion .. refined MS concepts.

It sort of reminds me of that old automotive analogy. It was often said that Japan manufactures only copied Detroit ideas .. but made them better. (Well .. not so much any more. This time around, Japan is copying all the bad Detroit ideas like mediocre quality control and making their cars worse - See Toyota. Oh, I'm going to Blog Hell for that one. Grin.)
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I too thought: why 4 inches wide if the iPad is flat?
Roque Mocan 5th Jan 2011
But there is a fundamental difference: this is a "camera" not "touch". There are YouTube's of a research project where someone uses just a sheet of paper and slide a pen, using the sheet as a ruler (the demo uses the "ruler" to cut a picture in two). Also, you can put things like glasses with drinks with coded tags that are recognized. Seeing the video of the Surface 2.0 and the sheet of paper "I can see", I would envision a restaurant where everyone just writes what they want to order and put it face down on the table... things like that...
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That "restaurant" idea sounds clumsy and inefficient
Zogg 6th Jan 2011
@Roque Mocan

"I would envision a restaurant where everyone just writes what they want to order and put it face down on the table... things like that..."

Wouldn't it be better to have the table display the menu itself, and have customers touch the items they want to buy? That would completely avoid the need for paper, pens, handwriting recognition and cameras, and be more intuitive to use too.
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Already exist
Tommy S. 6th Jan 2011
@Zogg In a restaurant/Pub at University Laval. You have a touch screen menu at each table.
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Wow, that's interesting.
Zogg 6th Jan 2011
@Tommy S. Does Laval use more conventional touch-screen technology to do this? I remember touch-screen bank teller machines from waaay back, which I can imagine being cheap enough nowadays to install at restaurant tables.

The OP was talking about the restaurant table itself being a touch device, of course.
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Its nice but so what?
jscott418 6th Jan 2011
How is this going to be a mainstream product? It looks cool but its pricey. Who wants to stand in front of a screen and touch it?
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Perhaps it could be used as a remote and for presentations and demos
adornoe@... 6th Jan 2011
If MS could bring down the size to somewhere around 10 to 12 inches, and have it "remotely connected" to a TV, what appears on the Surface "remote" could be what appears on the large screen TV. That might turn our TVs into "smart TVs".

Secondly, for presentations and demos, what appears on a small version of the "surface" table, could be projected onto a larger screen TV or onto a white screen, large enough for presentations.
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Price
parsley72@... 6th Jan 2011
Price and specification is in the press release:
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2011/jan11/01-06MSSurfaceSamsungPR.mspx
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good idea about android
gavin.chan 30th Sep
A good post. Thanks for sharing.Hi, do you own a tablet pc? We supply kinds of tablet computers, including 7 inch touch screen tablet . Buy a google android 2.1 epad from China at wholesale price.dijCY
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