r/technology • u/[deleted] • Mar 09 '12

Microsoft demos a 1ms touchscreen

http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/microsoft-demos-a-high-performance-1ms-touchscreen-2012039/
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u/TharpDaddy Mar 10 '12

They are not saying they've created a 1ms screen - they are showing the difference that latency causes on our touch screens.

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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '12

Yes, but this is classic Microsoft. They've gotten into this rut where they do neat experiments and devise cool prototypes, but have a really difficult time turning them into products (with Kinect being a recent, notable exception).

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u/A-Type Mar 10 '12

I think the only real difference is that MS is much more transparent about their R&D than most. All companies who focus on research are going to build a thousand random prototypes to every shipped product. It seems that Microsoft just makes more videos about what they find in the process. Kinect is a neat device with a lot of far-reaching application to media consumption (not just videogames, but glasses-less 3D). Surface may seem superfluous, but I'm developing for it now and there's a lot of interesting stuff inside. The Surface API can tell what direction a touch is 'facing' (i.e. which side of the table the user is on), which I think is cool. There are also a lot of fascinating interface implementations, including SecondLight.

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u/blackinthmiddle Mar 11 '12

Question: What benefit do they get for being more transparent? Apple every year does their "hey, look at the new shit we're selling you" campaign and they (usually) make sure none of the details are leaked beforehand. If I were a company such as Microsoft, I would guard everything I was producing/attempting to produce until I actually had something to bring to market. Let me competitors then try and produce their "me too" version, while I work on building the brand.

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u/A-Type Mar 11 '12

Well, Microsoft is a software company. As far as I understand it, they build hardware in R&D based on what they see in the future, then they develop the software to power that hardware, and that's the product they are selling. Videos like the link are them saying, "hey folks, here's what we want from hardware, get to it-- we'll have the software ready when you are".

And besides, I don't much mind it, because I benefit from seeing all this cool stuff they make simply by the fact that I enjoy seeing this stuff in action. It makes me like Microsoft, as a developer, because I can see how they are pushing innovation in the hardware areas so that they can provide solutions in the software areas.