Hasta La Gadget!

Microsoft’s Surface has been shipping out to corporate customers for a year now, but we haven’t heard much about the backend setup of the $17,000 table — sure, we know it’s fun when it’s up and running all those custom apps, but what’s it like after the unboxing? Incredibly frustrating, says FD kinesis’s Gordon Miller. Hired to implement a Surface solution for a client, Miller and his team first spent 30 minutes on the phone with MS phone support trying to locate the power socket, and another lengthy period of time poking at an unresponsive touchscreen before realizing that the Surface doesn’t respond to touch out of the box. Yep, you read that right — Microsoft’s $17,000 big-ass touchscreen table requires a keyboard and mouse to set up, something which isn’t noted in any of the marketing or manuals. Ouch. Hopefully that’ll get fixed before this thing ships to consumers in 2011, but in the meantime, hit the read link for the entire harrowing tale — it’s a pretty fun read for a Friday afternoon.

P.S.- We actually talked to Gordon on the phone for a quick minute and he said that Microsoft’s been in touch about the experience — he’s working on an new post about that which we’ll link when it goes up.

[Via Daring Fireball]

Filed under: Desktops

Microsoft Surface setup impressions: “filled with mind-bogglingly frustrating usability issues” originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Epson, along with partners Impressx and Engage, has
unveiled a multi-touch screen interactive desktop at the UK’s Gadget Show Live, according to Vnunet.com. The 52-inch X-Desk uses projectors–a natural fit for Epson, who sells a ton of the things–to transform a surface into an interactive display. The idea is to “[blur] the lines between the physical
and virtual worlds, allowing people to physically interact with digital content
such as photos, videos, documents, maps and information,” according to the company.

Here’s how it works: place an MP3 player, a cell phone, or other device on the surface, and the X-Desk gives you immediate access to whatever media is contained in the device. Users can also move media around on the surface. The report said that the system consists of a rear-projection screen, a camera, a PC with custom software, optical sensors that register and interpret touches on the
surface, and an Epson 3LCD projector. No word yet if the company plans to produce the X-Desk, but it probably won’t be any time soon.

HTC’s been pretty coy with pricing on the Touch Pro2 and Touch Diamond2, but now that units are starting to trickle out overseas, the numbers situation is getting slightly clearer. HTC’s just announced that an unlocked Pro2 will set Singaporeans back S$1,328 ($887), while a Diamond2 will hit ’em up for S$1,088 ($726) — a little more than in Taiwan, but probably close to what we’ll see off-contract in the States. A little rich for our blood, though — let’s hope T-Mobile cleans the goo off soon.

[Via Unwired View]

Filed under: Cellphones

Unlocked HTC Touch Pro2 to retail for $880, Touch Diamond2 for $725 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RFID technology has turned up in plenty of surprising places, but there hasn’t exactly been the explosion of iPhone-related development that you may have expected. The lack of an easily accessible RFID reader may have something to do with that, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped the folks behind the Touch research project, who rigged up a not-so-discreet RFID reader and put it to some fairly inventive tasks. That includes assigning various media to different objects, like a Bob the Builder video clip that’s linked to a Bob the Builder toy, a clip of Chuck Norris kicking a car in the face that’s linked to a Chuck Norris action figure (which doesn’t even have an RFID chip), and a dynamically-updated MAKE podcast that’s linked to a slightly nerdy fellow. Of course, all of this is primarily a proof of concept, and the researchers behind the project see plenty of potential for other applications, including everything from gaming to marketing. Head on past the break to check it out in action.

[Thanks, Thorleif]

Continue reading Object-based media project brings iPhone and RFID together

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

Object-based media project brings iPhone and RFID together originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Apr 2009 02:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon Wireless has unveiled its version of the HTC Touch Diamond, which will be available in stores and direct from Verizon’s Web site beginning tomorrow. As with other versions, the Touch Diamond features a 2.8-inch touch screen with full VGA (480-by-640-pixel) resolution, a 3.2 megapixel camera, a microSD card slot, and HTC’s TouchFLO interface overlay for Windows Mobile Professional 6.1.

The handset also includes visual voice mail, a VZ-Navigator-capable GPS chip, mobile instant messaging clients, and just plain looks cool. Unfortunately, looks aren’t everything. We’ve reviewed TouchFLO many times before, including unlocked and Sprint versions of the Touch Diamond. Suffice to say that it’s a powerful but flawed handheld, with a sluggish, uneven interface but plenty of high-tech features. I also reviewed Verizon’s version of the HTC Touch Pro, which adds a slide-out QWERTY keyboard to the design.

As is typical for Verizon, the carrier is pricing the Touch Diamond on the high side at $299.99 with a two-year customer agreement. Actually, it’s even higher–that price includes a $70 mail-in rebate, which will come in the form of a debit card, so it’s actually $369.99 up front.