
Microsoft’s Windows 8 Gamble Just Might Work  - lion0
http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/direct2dell/b/direct2dell/archive/2011/06/05/microsoft-s-windows-8-gamble-just-might-work.aspx
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jschrf
I don't think the difference between multi and single (mouse) touch is a huge
problem to overcome. There's no game-breaking technical challenges to develop
solutions that bridge touch and mouse+keyboard interfaces. When you have a
mouse and keyboard, you are using (at least) single-touch, and no onscreen
keyboard is required. When you are on a smartphone or tablet, you have multi-
touch and an onscreen keyboard may be required. It's not terribly complex,
although some consideration may land on application developers (e.g. changing
views when an onscreen keyboard is displayed, if necessary).

Windows 8 looks pretty great. It's nice to see stuff bleeding from mobile back
to the desktop. The blurring of lines between mobile and PC is a good thing.
Mobile is the true PC and the way we use our phones and tables should very
much dictate the way we use our workstations. Mobile computing is the front
line of HCI.

I think that having a shared experience across your phone, your tablet, and
your home and work PCs is a great idea. Especially since they can essentially
do the same things these days.

Forget "Cloud" computing, "Ubiquitous Computing" is far more exciting and
relevant. In my opinion it's shared platforms that don't distinguish between
hand-held and desk-held machines that will permeate our connected lives.

It's good to see MS take this kind of risk. Like many others I'm currently
committed to their platform as a developer, and I believe they have a truly
great ecosystem with .NET - but it's the company that pushes forward and tries
new and risky things will always be most interesting. In this case it's good
to see that it's the one who I've sunk time and effort into.

