Microsoft looking to bring Surface home sooner
By Nilay Patel 
posted February 5th 2008 2:34AM
posted February 5th 2008 2:34AM
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posted February 5th 2008 2:34AM
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Well I happen to have something like this at my house that I built myself for MUTCH less (almost $9,500 less) than what Microsoft is asking for essentially a PC, a projector, 4 cameras and a modified coffee table that took me a week to build in my own time and all I need to do now is write software that does not sought photos or create ripples or smoke. I don't see the huge price tag as an excuse!
I'm not sure where you get the $9,500 from (guessing you paid $500 and the commercial version is $10,000). But let's look at your $500.
You said it took you a week to build this. One of the biggest mistakes people make when they DIY is to forget that their time is also a cost. One way I calculate any project to determine if I will do it myself is to take all hours as time and a half of my regular pay at work. Honestly, aren't you really working overtime when you are doing these projects?
So let's say you spent a week. Let's make it a business week of 40 hours. And let's go off the national median income of around $52,000/year. That's $25/hr regular pay, which will be $37.50 at 1.5X pay.
So it actually cost you $1,500 off labor to build it, plus $500 in materials (going off your post.) Now you are at $2,000, or 2/5ths the target price of the retail version.
But, you menton you still haven't done the programing. Let's take a very conservative estimate that programming and debugging will take 3X the hardware setup (again, very conservative). That's 120 hours. At $27.50, that's $4,500. Plus the $2,000, you have $6,500, more money than the target retail price. And I'm sure it won't be as roboust and full featured as their retail offering.
If you make more than $52,000/yr, the numbers just fly up from there. And, of course, this is also full dependant on you having the skills to do this build (which it seems you do.)
Time is money. Laziness is usually the farthest thing down the list when it comes to higher income people not doing work for themselves. In reality, it is cheaper for them to pay someone else to do it for them.
Any half-assed Harry can do it there self. It won't be nearly as good.
As a computer in and of itself I would not be interested in this device. Managing my photos on it? No way.
If Microsoft launches this thing though with a home automation system I would be all over it. How great would it be to control your thermostat, make your grocery list, manage your book/movie libary, get directions, look at movie/TV listings and all sorts of stuff like that on a device like this?
It is obviously being targeted as an appliance not a computer and if it is going to succed as an appliance I need it to work with the rest of the things that use electricity in my home and life. My cellphone, my home lighting, my leaisure activities. Using it as a computer would not make it practical to use or worthwile for the price.
But what if your dog jumps up on the table and sends your house haywire? What if your house starts trying to kill you like that film?
Microsoft has demo'd this vision before and they have refridgerators that do close to the same, but image this:
You unpack your groceries on a kitchen island mounted surface computer, your food inventory is logged. When you use items, you place them on the same table and they are deleted from inventory.
Now you have a complete food inventory and it may even auto-generate a shopping list. It can also go out and pull down local sales prices and coupons for the items you keep on the shelfs.
But I think this would be one of the coolest features: If you are like me, you get stuck in the rut of cooking the same things over and over. Well, since the computer knows what food you have in the house, it can pull up all kinds of recipes, based on exactly what you have in stock. It may suggest things you never thought of trying.
One step further, it can even pull up videos demonstrating exactly how to cook something. When your cooking, you are usually looking down any way (to cut, stir, etc...), so it would be a natural fit to be looking down at the video while you cook along with the demo. This could open up totally new subscription services, seeing the Foodie movement is in full swing.
How cool would it be if you could make this sync with your mobile devices by just placing them on the table. OR EM field interface for things like external hard drives, memory or even addition processor modules. I'm feeling the whole Superman crystal thing coming on...in a only kind of joking sort of way...
If Apple made this thing people would have lost their minds by now hailing it as the next biggest thing in computers, our lives for that matter.
I know other people have already said it, but I'll jump in anyway. This is not meant to replace the computer you use for productivity and/or gaming. It's a new platform that's meant to push the boundaries for how you use computing devices.
Sure, this has been done before. But mostly in labs and as proofs of concept. After it gets into the hands of real people and more people to build applications for it, I'm pretty sure it will take off.
No, I'm not an MS die-hard. No, they didn't pay me to say this. If you look at my comment history, you'll see I have more history with Apple products. But look at the iPhone. 40% of the time I spend on my iPhone is in apps built by the dev community or 3rd parties.
I think this platform has great potential. I agree with concerns about the entry cost and bulk and hope that manufacturers (MS or other) can quickly innovate past the current limitations. Until then, I'm looking forward to see what people come up with for this.
These things would be great for restaurants and bars. Imagine being able to page girls at other tables, order food, video chat, play games, etc. all while at your table. The novelty factor alone would draw a huge crowd.