Design Exercise 11

I am firstly going to focus on the Microsoft Surface, for those of you who do not know what the Surface is

“its a multi-touch product from Microsoft which is developed as a software and hardware combination technology that allows a user, or multiple users, to manipulate digital content by the use of gesture recognition.”

(Wikipedia, 2010)

The surface is a large machine which looks like a coffee table hence the name Microsoft Table which is also commonly used. There is a camera below the screen which detects where your finger is touching the surface. It recognised multiple touches so than more than one person can work on it a at any one time.

On a social side of the argument the surface is very beneficial, more than one person can work on it at any time, and the way it is advertised is that It will be used in coffee shops and bars so that people can flick through their photographs and share them with each other over a social drink, there is even the idea of paying the bill by laying the credit or debit card on the surface. Therefore the surface opens many social opportunities. The content that is being produced is by Windows Presentation Foundation or XNA. And it is application based. “Developers already proficient in WPF can utilize the SDK to write Surface apps for deployments for the large hotels, casinos, and restaurants.” (Wikipedia, 2010)

It would be very difficult to steal a Microsoft Surface machine, as they are very large pieces of machinery, and likely to be secured in place if used in a bar or casino, however it takes 15 minutes to take off the side panels so it should be attended at most times. However the content has as much security as any other desktop computer, antivirus software and firewalls are required.

On the distribution side the surface is not available to an individual consumer at the moment, however they can be sold to large scale companies and industries, the surface is being used for the security at the American Football Super bowl.

The second item that I am going to look at is the mobile phone, specifically the i-phone. I do not own an I phone, and I have not spent very much time at all looking or just playing with one, however I am very interested in owning one of these phones one day.

On a social scale the phones are very high up the ladder, they allow you to keep in touch with friends and family all over the world, although this is the idea of any mobile phone, however the I phone has many specific social features and applications which are very different to other mobile phones.

The I phone has an application known as the ping application, this works exactly the same as a text message however it is free to ping another person, however a ping application can be only be used on the I phone. The phone also holds other applications such as Facebook which I hear rave reviews about as an application for usability. There are also other applications that link up your Facebook Live chat, MSN and Windows live messenger into one application, hence not having to log out of different accounts to speak o different people.

Apple produced the I phone, however the content on the I phone, the applications can be made by anybody, and people are making money out of making the applications. The content can be received by download via the phone, sometimes free but most are at a small cost.

The device is a secure device, however the security of the product Is completely down to the owner, the machines are rather small and therefore are more likely to get stolen when compared to a large machine such as the surface.

However I have been told that there is a way of getting hold of the applications that aren’t free without having to pay, this can be done by performing an illegal jail break on the phone. Therefore it is a risk for the people who want to make money out of selling applications for the iphone.

This could have a huge impact on me If I was a content creator, because I have most of the software I would need available to me, but is there any point in me taking this field of applications work seriously if people are going to be stealing the software constantly. Maybe this pathway would suite people more who want to create the applications as a hobby and not try to make a living out of it.

The final product that I am going to be talking about is the recent ipad, this is also made by the company Apple and is also application driven, it Is just like a larger version of the apple iphone which I reviewed before this. Therefore it holds similar qualities such as jail breaking the machine to receive free applications.

However the Ipad is a lot more expensive than the iphone, has a larger screen, larger memory and better applications. The I pad would be just as secure as the I phone in terms of hacking, although it is down to the personal owner to keep the ipad away from theft, as it is a very expensive piece of equipment it would be very appealing to thieves.

I believe that in one years time that there will not be too much change on the market, I believe that the iphone will still be a large seller, I cannot honestly see the ipad making a huge impact on the multimedia world within the next year.

I believe that an impact could be made but the price would have to be reduced because it is just crazy to think that people can afford this amount of money on one gadget.

I think that this could only create more opportunity for me as a digital designer, the more platforms which come out will offer me more ways of displaying my work. However I have to have training on the certain software’s to be able to do this.