Computers Taking Over The World (Microsoft Surface)

Introduction
The Microsoft surface is a surface-computing platform that responds to real objects(phones and cameras) and touch sensory. With this touch surface, people can have hands on interaction with the device, which makes it very intriguing to use, and makes it more appealing for people to use. The most important aspect that a person would ask about the product would be it's durability. The durability of the Microsoft Surface is excellent; the surface is made to withstand pretty much everything including sticky hands to spilled drinks! The Surface is supposed to be the biggest change in computing since we moved from DOS to graphics. This new technology is not just a regular computer with a touch screen, it is a whole new computing device that was not made to replace older computers but to work with them.

History
The original idea of “surface computing” was developed by Steve Bathichi and Andy Wilson at Microsoft in 2001. The key function of the surface is it interacts with objects placed on top of it through touch and vision, and it becomes a new way that people interact with computers. Early on, Bathiche and Wilson thought they would build a Play Table. By early 2003, the team presents the surface idea to Bill Gates, and he liked the idea and encouraged more research. They build a modest prototype dubbed T1, based on an IKEA table with a hole cut in the top and a sheet of architect vellum used as a diffuser. The team started developing applications such as a pinball game, a photo browser and a video puzzle. The Surface team took advantage if the unique ability of the surface to recognise different objects such as camera's and cell phones. The team decided to use a device called to Domino Tag to recognize objects and upgraded to five camera's instead of one, to recognize various movements on the Surface platform. After extensive amount of research the product was finalized in 2005. Pete Thompson joined the Surface team in 2006 to aid in the developing of the team and the marketing of the product. The Surface team grew to over 100 employees,which all helped in bringing this product to it's market-ready state. The Microsoft Surface has now been sold to a few commercial business' and should be ready for purchase to the everyday consumer in three to four years.

Specifications
The Microsoft Surface has a 30-inch display which resembles a table top look, it is 22 inches high, and 42 inches wide. The Microsoft Surface tabletop is made of acrylic, and the interior frame of it is powder-coated steel. The Microsoft Surface runs on Windows Vista and it has Bluetooth connectivity!

Advantages
With the Microsoft Surface, this allows a 'better flow in traffic', due to it's easy to handle touch surface. For instance, using the Microsoft Surface in hotels would increase the speed of check-in, because customers could use a self check-in system with the Surface, with the self check-in system, they customer does not need to make any human interactions with the employees. Without the communication customers may do exactly what they want without the extra time spend on communication.

In Retail, customers can easily design a living room or a kitchen with just a touch of the fingers. With the Surface, customers can pick out the design and furniture around the room, and seeing an instance image of it. If the customers do not like what they're seeing, they can easily just delete it. With clothing retailers, the same idea aplies, men can mix and match their ties and suits until they see what they want, and women can mix and match their accesories until they see what they like which makes sales much easier.

In restaurants customers may order and pay right from their table, with this, customers and employees can save a lot more time! Using the surface would eliminate the need for employees to take the order, and eliminates the need to hand the bill to the customers. Education wise, the Microsoft Surface could be used as the Teacher's Assistant, and assist the teachers in classroom discussions. This would give the students a new method to learn their school material, and may help the students increase their knowledge with the new technology. This would be very efficient for the teachers, because the teachers would always have the materials all ready in the Microsoft Surface, ready for the students to have hands on experiments.

Summing up the advantages, the Microsoft Surface would make the whole world a very convenient place to work and operate in, due to it's easy to use system, and elminating the old tasks that used to be needed to be done by other people.

Disadvantages
With the advancement in technology like the Microsoft Surface, people are becoming more dependent on technology, with this advancement sooner or later everything that people will be doing will be evolved around technology.

The Microsoft Surface is a really expensive product, with this price, it would only allow limited amounts of businesses to posses it. Therefore, Microsoft should find a cheaper way to produce this product so more people can have the enjoyment of using this device.

As mentioned before in the advantages, since the Microsoft Surface is so convenient in the self check-in side of things, this would greatly decrease the interactions between people, because a majority of the time people will be relying on this device to do their work.

With the size of this device, the Microsoft Surface may become quite inconvenient, because this would make it hard for people to transport it from one destination to another. Due to it's size, disposing it would cause big environmental damage, unless if Microsoft, or recycling programs find a more efficient and environmentally friendly way of disposing this device.

Second Light
The second generation of Microsoft Surface is called Second Light. It is built based on the original model of Microsoft Surface. Second Light is designed to have a second projector inside the table computer that can project images onto a layer above the surface of the screen. The second projector also enables the Surface to overlay secondary images above those on the screen, for example, satellite imagery over a street map. Second Light also strengthens its inducing ability by adding an auxiliary device, an infrared sensor, in the Surface; it can interpret gestures and movements without having to touch the screen.

Applications Customization
Microsoft Surface's applications can be customized in order to use in various areas. An example of this is downtown Seattle's premier luxury destination, Hotel 1000. The hotel cooperated with experts from other fields to release the first customized Microsoft Surface Application. The application is designed and developed specifically for Hotel 1000. Customers can browse a number of pictures and information by using Studio 1000.

Wine Guide
Microsoft Surface was first used as wine guide at Tesco Wine Fair in London, September 2008. It provides information about different kind of wines by connecting the wine vendors and the customers. Also, surface allows customers to provide feedback about the taste of different wines to vendors.

Games
Microsoft Surface can be used as a game table. A physics panel is built within the surface which can recognize physical movements. With this ability, a number of games like solitaire and air hockey can be play on the surface.

Photo Viewer
Viewing pictures is a basic function of Microsoft Surface. The application enables surface to display many images at once, secondly it is programmed to receieve multi-touch signals to let more people enjoy at the same time.

Personalization
It is a fun application of Microsoft Surface in a way that users can be creative in designing their favorite items. A various of patterns and colors can be selected on the surface and put together. Examples of current items that can be designed through the surface are snowboard and T-shirt. This will be a marketable way to sell consumer products, if it is used by retail store.

Current Customers
The Microsoft Surface is gradually expanding its market in the business world. Currently, the organizations that purchased the Microsoft Surface are AT&T, Harrah's Entertainment, and Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide. Also Microsoft is collaborating with International Game Technology (IGT) on the development of microprocessor-based gaming in the desire to create popularity and bigger market for the Surface Technology.

The Target Markets In The Future
Due to the price and practicality over the current Surface Model, Microsoft mainly focused on five vertical industries including retail, hospitality, automotive, banking, and healthcare, but over time it will expand to other areas as well as building out a consumer product for the home.

Conclusion
After thorough research, one will come to the conclusion that computers are taking over the world! This is because computers are becoming to have more and more applications, with enables them to overtake a lot of jobs that usually requires human employees to do, such as taking the order at a restaurant, or front desk employees at hotels to help customers check-in, or even at retail stores, the employees no longer have to give much advice to customers on matching clothes. As a result, many jobs are being replaced with the microsoft surface, and people are becoming unemployed. Sooner or later, all human beings will be replaced by computers, and that is when they truly take over the world.

Researching Sites
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7945154.stm

http://www.designnews.com/article/2273-Microsoft_Surface_Technology_Uses_DLP_to_Recognize_Media_Players_Digital_Photos.php

http://www.identitymine.com/Technologies/Surface/

http://www.microsoft.com/SURFACE/about_faqs/faqs.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/Default.aspx?page=product#section=Hardware

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/Default.aspx?page=product#section=Origins

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/Opportunities.aspx

http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:xQR16DKZ_ecJ:monsterdesign.tistory.com/attachment/dk37.pdf+the+history+of+microsoft+surface&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2007/05/what-lurks-below-microsofts-surface-a-qa-with-microsoft.ars

Images
http://www.articlefarms.com/opinion/2007/07/26/microsoft-surface/ (Microsoft Surface)

http://www.aboutmicrosoftsurface.com/experience-microsoft-surface.php (Menu Ordering)

http://dvice.com/archives/2008/04/microsoft_surfa.php (Wine Guide)

Designs

 * Retail interior design(Related Designs)