Hasta La Gadget!

While consumers who purchase tablets don’t normally do it for the specific purpose of gaming, it looks like those who do might want to check out the Microsoft Surface when it is released. According to reports online, the upcoming FPS game Halo 4 will be playable on the Microsoft Surface. During Venture Beat’s GameBeat 2012 conference, Don Mattrick, President of Interactive Entertainment Business for Microsoft made the claim though he didn’t elaborate on what he meant.

Could he be talking about the Xbox SmartGlass app that was shown off at this year’s E3? Or did he mean that users could play the full game on the tablet itself. If that’s the case, it looks like the Surface could be a potential hit in the gaming sector (assuming other developers follow suit with their games as well). Stay tuned for more details.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Microsoft shows off Halo 4, game set for November 6th release, Halo 4 pre-order bonuses detailed by Microsoft,

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has spoken out on his frustrations around the Megaupload case, as well as praising Microsoft’s visual design as something Steve Jobs would be proud of. The outspoken exec voiced his dissatisfaction with the Kim Dotcom case while at the Entel Summit in Chile, FayerWayer reports, refusing to comment on whether he believes high-ranking politicians had a hand in the investigation, but expressing dismay at some of the techniques used to bring Dotcom to trial.

“Kim Dotcom was so successful, and he was well known for his flagrance, and his sports cars, and his racing cars, and style of life, that he was made an easy target” Wozniak said. “He was the biggest in the world, and they swamped in on him … I don’t want to take a side in this political thing, I don’t know if that’s where it came from.”

It’s not the first time Wozniak has spoken publicly on the Megaupload situation. One of the original founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Wozniak compares the cloud storage system to other platforms like Apple’s own iCloud and Google Drive.

As for Apple’s rivals, Wozniak has plenty of praise for Microsoft. “A lot of people like to say that Microsoft’s had no successes in the last so many years, but the Xbox is a success, and certainly Kinect” he pointed out, highlighting the clean UI of things like Metro in Windows 8 and Windows Phone.

“They have such a strikingly good visual appearance, which is a lot of what Steve Jobs always looked for, the art in technology, the convergence of art and technology. And usually it was visual appearance of things. So, I made a joke that Steve Jobs came back reincarnated at Microsoft” Wozniak said. “But I’m glad that Microsoft is starting to show that maybe they’re a different company from before, i don’t remember this sort of thing happening in a long time from Microsoft, so I’m very happy.”

Surface isn’t the only product on Wozniak’s shopping list, either. He’s hoping to pick up a pair of Google’s Project Glass wearables, suggesting that the head-mounted display could – as long as the functionality was right – be a good example of the next-generation of portable computing.

“Google Glass is maybe the thing, but I don’t want to comment on that because I don’t have Google Glass. I would love to be able to have Google Glass and just talk to it any time I want and ask valuable questions and get those answers, that would be good too.”

[via Cult of Mac]

Steve Wozniak speaks: Megaupload frustrations, Microsoft praise and Google Glass lust is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made sure to mention quite how well the company did in keeping Surface off the radar before launch, and it seems the firm’s next tablet sleight of hand is already underway. The Windows tablet team “did a good job of keeping [Surface] secret” Ballmer boasted on-stage at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference today, going on to subsequently name-check new acquisition Perceptive Pixel. Make no mistake, though; while Ballmer may have shown the most enthusiasm about that company’s vast multitouch screens, it’s Perceptive Pixel’s potential in Surface-style hardware that could give Microsoft its tablet edge against the iPad.

Perceptive Pixel’s huge-screen multitouch products are certainly the company’s most eye-catching offerings. Scaling up to the 82-inch point, the wall-mounted panels allow for a practically infinite number of fingers touching, swiping and gesturing on them. It’s a crowd-pleaser, for sure, and Microsoft was keen to point out that the technology had been used by CNN for the 2008 US presidential election, among other things.

However, while Perceptive Pixel’s “expertise in both software and hardware will contribute to success in broad scenarios such as collaboration, meetings and presentations” according to Microsoft’s press release, it’s the potential in smaller screens that holds the most promise. The company calls it “Active Stylus“, a system where fingers and digital pens work together simultaneously, and it’s something that could transform future Surface models.

Currently, the widest-implemented pen and touch system for tablets uses Wacom technology. Now, we’re talking active stylus here – where the pen communicates with the digitizer layer built into the display, rather than just mimicking a squishy fingertip as with the numerous capacitive styluses we’ve seen released for the iPad – where there’s a far greater degree of accuracy in how much the tablet knows about the position of the nib. Wacom’s digitizer knows if the stylus nib is near to the screen, and so it can turn off a regular, capacitive touchscreen layer so as not to get confused between touches. That also means users can lean on the display while using the stylus, without their hands being mistakenly picked up as touch points.

Perceptive Pixel’s system, however, is even more comprehensive. It can not only track the nib up to a half-inch above the display (and even figure out exactly how far it is, the angle it’s being held at, and more) but allow the user to simultaneously use their fingers too. Extra technology differentiates between wrists and palms being rested on the display, too.

“Dual pen and touch comes into its own on a tablet-scale device”

Those abilities may look great on a touchscreen bigger than most peoples’ TVs, but they really come into their own on a tablet-scale device. Apple has been happy to leave the stylus market to others, and it looks like Microsoft is keep to pick up that baton and run with it as best it can; if it can prove there’s a valid use-case for accurate, agile pen input that legitimately delivers something above and beyond fingers alone, that could be a real differentiator for Windows-based models.

“[Microsoft] may need to keep a few more things secret as we move forward” Ballmer said cryptically at the event today. “There’s a real advantage to being able to work [undisturbed].” With the initial response to the company’s own-brand tablets being generally positive, integrating Perceptive Pixel technology into next-gen Surface tablets may well be the follow-up clandestine project Ballmer was so keen to tease us about.

Surface Sleight of Hand: Microsoft’s big touch distraction is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Microsoft ruffled more than a few feathers when it introduced its Surface tablet, although pricing and availability details were scarce at the event in June. One of the key features of the tablet was its premium magnesium construction featuring an integrated kickstand. Digitimes reports that Microsoft is seeing low yields with the case construction method, with the publication citing upstream supply chain sources.

Microsoft is said to have approached a number of chassis makers, saying that it planned to construct five million Surface tablets by the end of 2012. Manufacturers apparently balked at the idea, unable to meet Microsoft’s construction demands. Microsoft eventually found a Chinese supplier to construct the casing, but because they’re a “second-tier maker” the process has resulted in low-yields. Microsoft is said to be paying close attention to the manufacturing process as a result.

Aside from the magnesium casing, Surface for Windows RT will feature an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor, while Surface for Windows 8 Pro will have one of Intel’s low-power Ivy Bridge processors. The Pro variant will be slightly thicker a result, but will be more powerful and run the full version of Windows 8. Rumors have indicated that the pricing for the RT tablet will be around $599 for the 32GB model, while the Intel-based Pro version will run $899.

Microsoft Surface magnesium case reportedly hit by low yields is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Think Microsoft and what do you get: old, enterprise, and well behind the times, perhaps? Not if one designer has his way; Andrew Kim may not have a contract with Microsoft, but that hasn’t stopped him crafting a whole new branding strategy that ditches the “Windows” pane of today and replaces it with a crisp parallelogram Kim calls the “slate”, before pulling in Windows Phone, Surface, Office, and Windows under some straightforward new headings.

We’ve featured Kim’s design work before, including his Butterfly smartphone concept all the way back in 2007, and his widely-shared HTC 1 Android phone concept of 2010. “The Next Microsoft” is arguably his best work yet, however, ditching even the 2012 logo refresh for something we could easily see appearing on the front of packaging and in adverts.

Under Kim’s strategy, Windows Phone would be moved in under Surface branding, with a choice of Surface Tablet or Surface Phone. Windows RT would be renamed “Metro” to better differentiate it from Windows 8 Pro, branded simply “Windows”, and the Metro UI itself would be cleaned up with some improved color schemes and more intuitive interfaces for things like Wallet.

“I decided that Microsoft needs to be a brand that represents the future” Kim says of the project. “Be slightly aggressive unlike Apple and Google’s friendly marketing. Promise to deliver the future today. Be almost science fiction.”

Microsoft has shown a new, rather more dynamic side with Surface, even if it has potentially damaged its relationships with OEMs. Now, it could do a lot worse than give Kim a call and chat future brand strategy.

[via Kote Pacheco]

The Next Microsoft: The branding Surface deserves is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.