Microsoft Builds Giant Surface Tablet In London

[roseofbattle]

Microsoft Builds Giant Surface Tablet In London

Microsoft markets itself to London with a big, interactive screen in Trafalgar Square.

Against the background of a cloudy London sky, one 383-inch tablet sits in the middle of one of London's big tourist areas. Microsoft built a large Surface tablet for people to interact with in Trafalgar Square next to Nelson's Column.

Microsoft recently released its Surface 2. The giant Surface in the tourism-heavy Trafalgar Square has already caught the attention of many people of various ages either living in London or visiting. The tablet includes a large Surface keyboard for people to use by stepping on the keys. Children can play a spelling game by jumping on the right keys. The keyboard is large enough that there is space to walk around the keys without stepping on one. The tablet is connected via USB and Micro HDMI, and it's powered by a Surface 2. It's all fully functional and designed to stir up interested for the new Surface 2 tablet.

Microsoft built the large Surface in 12 hours. It is 27 feet wide and 17 feet high, making it larger than some of the surrounding statues and fountains in the area, but it's still nowhere near the size of the 170-foot tall Nelson's Column.

Trafalgar Square sees thousands of people pass through, making it an ideal location for publicity. To the north of the square is the National Gallery. Many London Underground stations surround the area, as well as many busy roads, making it an area high in traffic.

Source: The Verge [http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/24/5023572/microsoft-giant-surface-trafalgar-square-london]

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[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

OK, as much as I dislike Microsoft I have to admit, this is quite awesome. It's Gulliver's laptop. Except that the lap part is for decoration only.

 

[LavaLampBamboo]

Well, this is all well and good, but it's sure going to be embarrassing when it inevitably bluescreens.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

How long before someone wirelessly jailbreaks it and searches for shock sites?

I'll be disappointed if it doesn't happen.

 

[rosac]

Oh hey, more stuff for London!

 

[shiajun]

Well, this is all well and good, but it's sure going to be embarrassing when it inevitably bluescreens.

I wouldn't bet on that. I've been using win7 for years now without bluescreening,and none of my co-worker's or the lab's PCs have either. You may be stuck on winXP experiences.

 

[shiajun]

I wouldn't bet on that. I've been using win7 for years now without bluescreening,and none of my co-worker's or the lab's PCs have either. You may be stuck on winXP experiences.

Running Win 7 64-bit Pro and I blue screen whenever there's a memory conflict between two applications. When it happens, it's usually right after a new program has been installed. From what I can tell, it's most common when there is a conflict between a 32-bit and a 64-bit component.

So BSOD still exists in Win7. But you're welcome to continue pretending that it doesn't. And that Microsoft has eliminated it entirely from Win8.

Me? I like breathing too much to bother holding my breath.

Nah, I don't pretend it doesn't exist, just that it's a) nowhere near as prevalent as it was in XP times and b) no longer an issue encountered more often than in other OS. Recently I've seen a similiar number of Linux, MacOS and Windows computers just crash into system error, though that just may be anecdotal on my part. What I'm getting it at is that using BSOD that as a detractor of Microsoft is, in my experience, not valid anymore.

 

[Vie]

Why are they advertising still?

They already sold out all of the Surface tablets they brought over here... ..all 2000 of them.

Yeh, Microsoft wanted to guarantee that they could say "We sold out of Surface in the UK!" so they only sent 2000 of the ruddy things here. Apple, and all the big Android makers, probably sell that many here in a day.

 

[RicoADF]

I wouldn't bet on that. I've been using win7 for years now without bluescreening,and none of my co-worker's or the lab's PCs have either. You may be stuck on winXP experiences.

Running Win 7 64-bit Pro and I blue screen whenever there's a memory conflict between two applications. When it happens, it's usually right after a new program has been installed. From what I can tell, it's most common when there is a conflict between a 32-bit and a 64-bit component.

So BSOD still exists in Win7. But you're welcome to continue pretending that it doesn't. And that Microsoft has eliminated it entirely from Win8.

Me? I like breathing too much to bother holding my breath.

64bit Windows 7 here, I've only had a bluescreen when I had faulty memory in my system, once I narrowed it down and replaced the ram the issue was resolved. Sounds like you may be having hardware issues too, it's not the OS's fault if the hardware is faulty.

 

[RicoADF]

I've had hardware-fault BSOD as well. When I first built the box a stick of RAM was bad. It'd return a BSOD within 15 minutes of boot. RMA'd to NewEgg, installed a new stick, and all was well.

But currently, when I get a BSOD, it's immediately after installing a new application (and I seem to be installing a lot of beta software lately). Does it happen often? No. Only 2-3 times this year. If my IT experience is any guide, this more likely indicates a software memory address conflict and not hardware failure.

Ah that explains it, beta software is often full of bugs and memory address conflicts wouldn't be surprising. That's not Windows, that's the software. Just be aware whenever you use Alpha or Beta software you can often run into issues, that's part of what you agree to when using it.