Posted on 06/19/2012 10:05:11 AM PDT by for-q-clinton
LOS ANGELES — June 18, 2012 — Today at an event in Hollywood, Microsoft unveiled Surface: PCs built to be the ultimate stage for Windows. Company executives showed two Windows tablets and accessories that feature significant advances in industrial design and attention to detail. Surface is designed to seamlessly transition between consumption and creation, without compromise. It delivers the power of amazing software with Windows and the feel of premium hardware in one exciting experience.
(Excerpt) Read more at microsoft.com ...
First, Kinect is nowhere near being able to replace a mouse/trackpad. I know, I have one. Second, now I'm supposed to sit at my desk flailing my arms around all day? I'm again going to have some pretty strong arms after a while.
Yet even Microsoft has finally understood that a pen as the primary means of input is a no-go.
I have tired to use Siri for data input - but it is a joke and works correctly (if at all) less than 10% of the time.
I'd call it about 80% accurate for me when I'm just talking casually, asking for things as I would a person. 90% accurate when speaking carefully as if to a regular voice recognition system. 100% accurate when stating phrases I know work ("set a timer for 20 minutes"). However, about 5% of the time overall it IMHO takes too long to talk to the servers to return results. In all, not bad for a beta. Can't wait for iOS 6.
Of possible interest to the HDTV ping list.
Not with anyone I ever met. I use an iPad. It is indispensible. But if I need to type much I wait until I get to my computer.
They aren't good enough for the troll's point of argument. Nothing ever will be. Just as my point of leaving the DATA on the server and never on the mobile device fell on deaf ears wasn't good enough. If the data is never ON the device, it cannot easily be compromised by the device. . . Especially by a stolen device.
Apple doesn't seem to mind that they don't have any customers making tablets with iOS. Apple makes the iPad. Microsoft makes Surface.
encryption is only part of it. So are you a HIPAA expert?
My point was in response to the claim that people think they NEED keyboards and can't get along withou them. I can do so quite readily. Could I use an iPad to write the great American Novel? Yes, I could. Would I? Nope. But, milo, I know several writers right now that are attempting to do just that. I have booted my MacBook Pro maybe a dozen times since getting my iPads in the last two years. Instead of getting up and going to my Mac pro and typing a fairly long business letter, I'm much more inclined to stay in my recliner and type it on my iPad. It's easy and just as quick. But, if I am going to do a long research paper, or work on my novel, I will sit at my desk and use a regular keyboard.
But Apple is not in the business of selling operating systems to third party computer builders, Microsoft is, and Microsoft has just set themselves up as prime competitors with the entire customer base for laptop, ultra notebook, and tablet computers, which is something they have never done before! Microsoft is not selling Xbox 360 operating systems to other Xbox makers.
Google is already finding the mistake they made in buying Motorola Mobility is coming back to bite them in the rear end. Some of their major Android customers are starting to look at alternative platforms like Windows phone 7 because Google is now in competition with them and has already shown a tendency for their own brands to get the best first! Microsoft has a history of doing this to their partners.
I detest a corporation telling me what I need or want, regardless of who it is. Doesn’t matter if its GM, Microsoft, or Apple.
I resent the insult that I am a troll. This is a windows thread, it is the two of you who are trying to hijack the thread.
FIPS 140-2 is not required for HIPAA compliance. In fact HHS (a customer of mine) specifically says
“The following special publications are provided as an informational resource and are not legally binding guidance for covered entities.”
regarding FIPS 140-2 and all the NIST standards.
Encryption is only part of the solution for compliance. The general test is if the data is stored, processed or transmitted then the device/network is in scope for HIPAA controls. So a device which is running a browser being used to access ePHI (process or transmit) then the device must fall under a whole series of controls. If it doesn’t and a data breach results then the penalties are severe for willful negligence.
Both of you are technical folks. You should know that if you are accessing a server to use the data then the data doesn’t stay on the server.
How is he trolling? If anything its you and AR trolling this windows thread.
I suspected from the beginning that Bill Gates’ massive purchases of mosquito nets for Africa (yeah, right!) looked suspicious like a coverup of a new secret product!
No, but I know what it is. And with all the HIPPA-compliant apps out there, it's quite astounding for someone to come out and say the entire platform can't be used in a HIPAA environment unless locked down to uselessness.
Going to this absurd length you could make the same statement for PCs. I've worked in a government office where the PCs were so locked down, so loaded with security software, that they were barely functional. That's it, PCs shouldn't be used in a HIPAA environment.
Well I am a HIPAA expert. Its how I make my living, helping covered entities figure out how to deliver patient care without losing data and incurring the wrath of uncaring bureaucrats.
“it’s quite astounding for someone to come out and say the entire platform can’t be used in a HIPAA environment unless locked down to uselessness”
Its far more astounding for people pushing software and other products to make false claims about their products.
Its not about the platform its about protecting the data. The devices don’t have to be unusable, they just have to be controlled. Which is why consumer focused products rarely meet the requirements.
Oh and its not about the security software on the PC or other device.
Microsoft has sold millions and millions of mice, keyboards, peripherals for PC’s yet the secondary market is still huge. It’s a gamble for them to do this and of course could fall flat on their face. However if it succeeds in a big way the other manufacturers will be able to offer alternatives, something you can’t do with Apple. Also look at Google. They have offered their own branded phones and will be offering up their own branded tablet soon. They don’t control the manufacturing of it but they completely controlled the design and branding. Yet Google’s Nexus line of phones aren’t the best selling, they are a reference of sort for other manufacturers to attain to.
If the low-end ARM based model comes in at 1000 the product is sunk before it hits the beach. No way they do that. I am guessing the 32Gb Arm model to come in at 4-500.
That is not the same thing at all, aft. Selling peripheral to consumers is not the same as selling computers to consumers in competition with other makers to whom you also sell the required operating system for those computers to run. Microsoft is going to be competing with its own customer base. That is never a good idea. Microsoft has shown itself to be a poor and unfair competitor in the past, always taking the advantage for itself over its competitors.
I am just going to have to disagree. MS doesn’t have the track record on hardware to say they would do that(software sure). Plus it’s the PC side of the business which has heavy competition. Only one major vendor wasn’t notified of this in advance and those that have said that to them it was a challenge put forth by MS to them to compete. I almost guarantee that much like Google and its Nexus line of gadgets that it is outsourcing to a major manufacturer who will have it’s own branded tablets out there. Basically MS is saying to the vendors, this is what we want, beat it or lose. I would guess that the price will also fall midrange for the Windows 8 tablets as well.
The vendors are not as sanguine as you. They were not given much advance notice and many are not pleased at all and in fact are displeased. It does not matter who makes the Microsoft branded stuff, it matters that Microsoft will be selling computers and tablets in competition with their own Operating System customers. Here is a sample from just one article on the subject from the main stream press:
"The earliest that Microsoft's personal computing partners were told about the tablet was last Friday, just three days before it was shown to the media at an event in Los Angeles, according to sources in the U.S. and Taiwan technology industry who spoke on condition of anonymity.Windows chief Steven Sinofsky made a round of telephone calls but gave only the barest details on Friday, neither revealing the name of the gadget nor its specifications, two people close to Microsoft's partners told Reuters.
As such, Microsoft's main partners remained "in wait-and-see" mode and had to monitor the news for details, one of the sources said.
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told reporters the company had informed its largest hardware-manufacturing partners about the tablet. A company spokesman declined to say how much of a heads up the partners were given, or to elaborate further.
Sources at Acer Inc and Asustek Computer Inc, the world's fourth and fifth largest PC makers respectively, said the first they had heard of the new tablets was at Ballmer's news conference on Monday. "No senior executives heard about the news last week," said an Acer executive, who added they were still seeking details. "We're quite surprised."
Acer shipped nearly 10 percent of PCs in the first quarter of 2012, with Asustek accounting for 6 percent, according to research house IDC. The Surface marks a major strategic shift for Microsoft, ahead of the expected release of its new Windows 8 operating system by the fourth quarter of this year.
Microsoft is now pitting itself as a direct competitor, breaking with a 37-year old model where it had licensed its software to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as Dell Inc or Hewlett-Packard Co, which made the machines. — Source
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