Apple’s iPhone seemed to be the pinnacle of all of this good gadgetry. The iPhone may have led with endless hype and an overblown ticket price, but the end result yielded a payoff that was anything but disappointing. What’s that saying about necessity being the mother of invention, again? What we need and what we think we ought to have are certainly two different things. And if it’s beautifully streamlined, slick and colorful, slide in your pocket, multi-hundred dollar toys that are our latest need, so be it. Apple definitely made millions convincing us that there is more to life than a 10-disc changer. So as far as most were concerned, for 2007, the iPhone was hands down the best invention of the year.
Now, I’m a self-disclosed Mac girl, but has anyone heard of Microsoft’s Milan? OK, “Milan” was the project’s code name on the Microsoft campus for several months when this seriously hush-hush innovation was being birthed. About six months ago Microsoft unleashed press releases touting its new baby, the hope to match Apple wits for wits: the Surface. Something like a coffee table, Microsoft’s Surface is a computer without the mouse or keyboard.
Built with multi-touch screen technology, the thing is fluid, movable and the interface is said to be as sleek and alluring as the iPhone.
It uses projectors and sensors to detect and react to its user, noticing a finger, hand or even a glass laid on its, um ... surface. This one is hard to explain in words. Seeing is believing, so Google it to watch the promo videos out there online. Something about it made me slightly excited and uncomfortable at the same time, the way my grandmother must have felt on her first moving sidewalk. Imagining its use as a self-service info box, tour guide or endless DJ jukebox in our near future is a bit hard to believe, but certainly captivating.
Now why wasn’t this on the top of most year’s end lists? Well, the winter 2007 release hype was a bit premature. Microsoft hopes to unleash its new baby sometime this spring in Sheraton hotels, Harrah’s casinos and T-Mobil retail stores. Apparently the company has spent the time enhancing it’s software possibilities, expanding it to include more business applications like whiteboarding and data visualization for meetings and healthcare education software for hospitals. As I write, Bill Gates himself is no doubt preparing for his keynote address (slated for Jan. 6) at this year’s CES convention -— the mecca of the best technological gadgetry on the planet — and will surely have more to say about the impending Surface debut. If this thing really makes it to market, and with all that it promises, Microsoft could deliver a powerful blow to Apple, so much so, it hopes, that people might even forgive them for Vista.
Not sure whether technology is necessary, evil, both or neither, Christine Heinz perpetuates this love/hate relationship every day as a photographer, graphic designer and educator.