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[nutballs]

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/05/microsoft-shows-off-next-generation-of-surface-has-per-pixel-to/

If you leave aside all the stupid arguments about things like:
"they should be focusing on tablets",
"who would spend 7k on that"
"android/ipad/whoeverthefuck is better/cheaper/whocares"
blag blah blah.

The thing is, they are actually making some scifi stuff come true it seems. You know how in spy/scifi movies, the hand scanner for access to something is a color lcd screen that they just put their hand on, and then you see their whole hand and finger prints when they take their hand away?



Or how holding a piece of paper up the screen to scan it?


Its not a camera behind the lcd. its every pixel sensing via infrared.

again, its a long way off from being "you just use it and its magic" but, its getting more and more of the elements to get there it seems.

[nop_90]

Lots of shit M$ put out is "cool" problem is the "implementation".
The idea of having an entire OS a VM with all programs compiled to a bytecode is "cool".
That way the programs could pass info to each other, no need to worry about "upgrading" etc.
The idea of .net was really good, but M$ fucked up the implementation.

[nutballs]

tis true sadly.

every once in a while they do produce a winner. Kinect for example.
8 million in 60 days... wow.

[perkiset]

I think  it's completely hot that M$ is spending the time and money on this sort of thing. They got totally surprised by the success of the Mac originally - doesn't look like they want to be on the back side of huge UI developments in the future.

Hot stuff.

[nop_90]

M$ does tons of cool research.
Things like running F#(a variant of ocaml), scheme or lisp on a .net VM while not being as "sexy" as what NB is showing is simply amazing.

This is pretty cool even.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/kodu/
Kodu is a new visual programming language made specifically for creating games. It is designed to be accessible for children and enjoyable for anyone. The programming environment runs on the Xbox, allowing rapid design iteration using only a game controller for input.

This is pretty cool also
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/cambridge/projects/sensecam/
SenseCam is a wearable digital camera that is designed to take photographs passively, without user intervention, while it is being worn. Unlike a regular digital camera or a cameraphone, SenseCam does not have a viewfinder or a display that can be used to frame photos. Instead, it is fitted with a wide-angle (fish-eye) lens that maximizes its field-of-view. This ensures that nearly everything in the wearer’s view is captured by the camera, which is important because a regular wearable camera would likely produce many uninteresting images.

But the research side and the business guys seem to be able to work together.

[perkiset]

But the research side and the business guys seem to be able to work together.

I assume you mean "don't" seem to be able to work together ... In which case I think truer words were never spoke.