Ballmer building any of that would be equivalent to Microsoft actually building some of the technology from their latest "Vision" clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cNdhOKwi0
All of those things seem simple in hind sight, but there were very real hurdles preventing them from being realized at that time (for example, the Internet infrastructure for real-time video chat).
Concept videos like this are just the tech world's version of concept-cars by the auto industry. They make the company seem innovative and research oriented without the significant resources required to make a practical product. True, they sometimes yield useful research, but most of the time they're just meant to be good P.R.
You know what's really sad about that Video, even in the future Microsoft imagines them selves using low resolution displays. I mean, for god sakes, every time they would zoom in on that frameless phone thing you would clearly see pixels. Since it's all CGI, they actually went out of their way to give it low res screen look my painting in the pixel lines.
I think, at least for me, the true failure of MS Surface was the crappy display it came with.
I played with the Surface Pro for a week or two. I felt the display was actually one of the best ones I've seen. Especially considering the quality of the pen digitizer inside.
Are you maybe referring to the lower-res display on the Surface RT? (I haven't played with that one much.)
I wish the RT screen was as good as the pro. Played with it yesterday and it was great. Not as good as iPad, but so good that I think most people, including me, would not care. And I think the Windows 8 os is just marvelous, I just wish they would finish it. Right now it feels like beat still.
In terms of PPI:
-- Surface Pro is 207.82
-- iPad Retina is 264
-- Nexus 10 is 300
(The iPad Retina actually looks quite blurry to me for reading text after spending time with a Nexus 10.)
As for Windows 8. I've been using it on a laptop and have been pretty happy with it. I just upgraded to Windows 8.1 RTM and they've made tons of small refinements everywhere.
All of those things seem simple in hind sight, but there were very real hurdles preventing them from being realized at that time (for example, the Internet infrastructure for real-time video chat).
Concept videos like this are just the tech world's version of concept-cars by the auto industry. They make the company seem innovative and research oriented without the significant resources required to make a practical product. True, they sometimes yield useful research, but most of the time they're just meant to be good P.R.