There was hardly any sweat.

Am I the only one who sees what an overhyped feature this is? Maybe OK for tablet notebooks, but who the heck wants to spend hours in front of their machine with their fingers on the fingerprint-smeared screen? My shoulders ache just thinking about it. Flicking pictures is entertaining for about the first five flicks, then I want a list to click on.

I won't be insulting. I'm trying to be a better person these days. The point is, the first time I saw an iPhone, I said, "Now that's cool!" and, "If Apple puts that interface on a computer, I'll buy a Mac." Now why hasn't Apple put their so cool interface on a laptop? Huh?

Christ. First Microsoft filches the very idea of a GUI. Then they license their OS and dominate the marketplace. Now they are going to take Apple's coolest thing ever, and beat Apple to a touch screen computer?

The question is not how "last year" Microsoft is, but just how stupid IS Apple?

Sheesh.

It's not a big iPhone, it's a small Surface. Apple and Microsoft have BOTH been working on multi-touch all along.

I spend 90% of my working day working at a computer. The vast majority of that time is working with text, which is not aided by multitouch. Also, multitouch is not ergonomic. If I have to look down to see the things I'm manipulating, it's bad for my neck and back. If I look forward, but have to reach out to the screen, my shoulders will wear out very quickly. When I use a mouse, I just move my hand an inch or two and do everything I need to get done.

Ever wonder why the multitouch demos always show the same application, photo sorting? Because it's the only useful multitouch application for many people. There are no obvious applications to (a) word processing, (b) email and instant messaging, or (c) web browsing, which are what most people do on computers these days.

What a waste of creative programmers.

Remember when Hewlett Packard made desktop computers with touch screen monitors? It was revolutionary! This was before GUIs and mice, remember, so to have a new form of input was considered a huge breakthrough.

Until people tried to actually use the silly things, and realized that holding their arms out at full length for more than 30 seconds was a tiring and frustrating experience. I'll believe that Microsoft video when I see the user work with the UI for more than an hour.

It's fine for PDAs and phones, but leave it off the large screens.

You act surprised, yet being "last year" is Microsoft's fundamental business strategy and has been for decades. Everything they make money at is something somebody else did first. They didn't invent windows. They didn't invent word processing, spreadsheets, or any other part of office. They didn't invent the web browser. It's hard to point at ANY major innovation Microsoft has come up with (instead of copying) aside from some clever feature bundling.

And why should they? Let other people take the risks, find out second hand what works, then dump incredible amounts of money in that general direction for 3+ years until they dominate the market. It's worked well for them so far.

My prediction: the next XBox will bear some startling resemblances to the Wii. :P

... do you understand how immensely immature and childish you appear? I mean, look-- no one who claims to be an independent member of the media should do such fanboy fawning. I can't believe that an organization such as Salon, which is dedicated to being a critic of the mainstream media, allows one of its commentators to engage in such out-and-out, content-free cheerleading for a multinational corporation. I can't understand why intelligent people are willing to suspend their discretion and critical capacity for a manufacturer of a commodity. When Apple is good, praise it. But when there is no critical apparatus working at all, when every post is an opportunity to shill for one specific company and slag its major competitor, you are not engaging in journalism or commentary. And I can't imagine it's entertaining for anyone, even Apple partisans. (Why wouldn't they just go to Apple's website, if they want uninterrupted fawning?)

I honestly believe that you cross a very basic line of propriety and journalistic integrity when Look, here's my challenge to you-- how would anyone know that you aren't a paid advertiser for Apple? I'm serious. Demonstrate to me how your blog here has ever been anything but completely in the tank for Apple. Why does every post about anything having to do with Microsoft have to elicit such juvenile insults and comparison to the super-hip Apple? Grow up, and engage in actual measured criticism, or simply change the name of your blog to the Apple Evangelist and make it plain that Salon has dedicated a space to advertising for one particular company. Because right now you're simply embarrassing yourself.

Christ. First Microsoft filches the very idea of a GUI. Then they license their OS and dominate the marketplace. Now they are going to take Apple's coolest thing ever, and beat Apple to a touch screen computer?

Surface's multi-touch tech preceded the iPhone, and in fact has many more useful applications than the iPhone-- which you would know, if you bothered to do 5 minutes of research on the subject.

I came away convinced that Ballmer doesn't have a clue how to compete with Google.

Here's what he said: "You need scale, and business innovation, and technological innovation. You need breakthrough innovation and incremental innovation. You need it in search and in advertising. You need to bring it all together. And you need it at all levels of the stack."

Whenever I hear a CEO say, "We need to do it all!" I translate: "We really don’t know what the hell to do here."

You get what I'm saying now?

"Surface's multi-touch tech preceded the iPhone, and in fact has many more useful applications than the iPhone-- which you would know, if you bothered to do 5 minutes of research on the subject."

I'll give you that Surface was being prototyped before the iPhone reached that stage, but that hardly gives MS credit for the idea of a multi-touch interface (nor did Apple invent this idea).

And with a unit price of $10k and deployed so far only to AT&T stores, what exactly are Surface's many more useful applications?