Microsoft gears up to mass produce large-screen touch displays

Re:Microsoft gears up to mass produce large-screen touch dis... by Renaud on Thursday September 04, 2014 @01:04AM (#8266859)

If the price is right, there could be a whole ecosystem using these big displays.

Imagine every family owning one where they can easily access kids activity schedules, pin lists of groceries, track chores, to do litst that could sync with every family member's phone (for those old enough),...

This could completely replace the fridge magnets and the pin board, and it could be an excellent way for younger kids to interact with educational content.

It could also server as a communication point for younger kids who are too young to have their own phone/tablet, be able to call each-others under supervision, ...

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Re:Microsoft gears up to mass produce large-screen touch dis... by noonespecial on Thursday September 04, 2014 @04:42AM (#8267254)

I love technology. I totally want what you just described; but if you don't have a "family whiteboard" get one now. Even if its just the low-tech kind with markers. I can't tell you how awesome it is to watch my (gradeschool age) kids sketch their ideas after being brought up with ours.

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Re:Microsoft gears up to mass produce large-screen touch dis... by moron4hire on Thursday September 04, 2014 @08:17AM (#8267756)

I have a friend who painted an entire wall in his house with blackboard paint, to be used with chalk. It's actually rather gorgeous. The kid isn't old enough yet to draw on it, but we certainly had a lot of fun with it :)

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Re:Microsoft gears up to mass produce large-screen touch dis... by k__ on Thursday September 04, 2014 @08:24AM (#8267776)

The parents of my girlfriend just let her draw on the walls when she was young (<4).

After the years it got hidden behind furniture, because she was so small back then and couldn't draw >1m.

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Re:Microsoft gears up to mass produce large-screen touch dis... by joezydeco on Thursday September 04, 2014 @10:47AM (#8268554)

I saw a technology demo a long time ago, I think from Philips, that used a camera pointed at a whiteboard. Aside from the typical "take a snapshot of the board and fax/email it to me", the board could recognize and execute various actions by writing words and symbols on the board and drawing a circle around them. (e.g. "75+circle = set the room temp to 75 degrees")

This was way before cheap vision systems were around. I bet someone could hack something together today with a cheap Linux SoC, webcam, and OpenCV.

Combined with a video projector it could do even more. But then again, I don't want a noisy projector running all the time in my kitchen.

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Re:Microsoft gears up to mass produce large-screen touch dis... by fsiefken on Thursday September 04, 2014 @07:45AM (#8267655)

I already have very cheap 0.5 mm think foil i put on the living room door on which i write household schedules, chores etc for that week. Good enough and makes me less dependent on technology. Having such a display always on would take lots of electricity and would be distracting, the white foil doesn't have these problems and is infinately smaller and cheaper - it just doesn't have the intelligence (you probably won't need for this particular purpose)

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Re:Microsoft gears up to mass produce large-screen touch dis... by icebraining on Thursday September 04, 2014 @07:51AM (#8267677)

Good enough and makes me less dependent on technology

Except for the immense supply chain that brings those products to your store :)

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