r3fresh

Microsoft Surface: The Coolest Table You’ll Never Use

Microsoft today released something very unexpected, a touch sensitive table, AKA Microsoft Surface. The Microsoft Surface, after watching the videos, is capable of doing anything on earth. You can order your favorite dessert or transfer money to your credit card, which sounds incredibly safe on something that hotels and stores will supposedly be using. The idea of the interactive table isn’t a new one, but now that Microsoft has taken control of the idea it sounds more* reachable.

Now, don’t get me wrong about the table, it’s one of the coolest pieces of furniture I have ever seen, but is it truly realistic? These tables will in no way will be cheap ($10,000 range) and will close out any middle class household who might even think about purchasing one. The table, if ever made, will be for the wealthy people of the world (ie Bill Gates…he probably already has one) and will never become as popular as the iPod or the Xbox 360. In my opinion Microsoft should ax the idea of the table for now, but bring it back in a few years when the price is more consumer friendly.

On one last note, it is good to see Microsoft thinking with innovation, this kind of thinking might lead to a better competition towards Apple and Nintendo, when it comes to innovation and design.

To see videos about the Microsoft Surface, click here.

A Redesign and a Review of Autoblog.com

A few months ago we saw the (much needed) redesign of Engadget.com and just this past week we saw the redesign of Autoblog. Autoblog for those who don’t know, is a blog about cars, duh, which I have become a fan of over the past 2 years I’ve been reading it. What I like about Autoblog, over Jalopnik or any of the other car enthusiast blogs, is it seem to be more placed on newer (and future) cars and designs. Over the past week the site got a visual refresh, which included a new color scheme (red and black), a new blog heading, and a clean-up.

The new color scheme is much more pleasing to look at and creates great contrast with the red, black white. Before the redesign, the site was pretty boring and probably would be skipped over by new readers. It is important to have something on your website or blog that will be eye-catching (and memorable) if you want people to come back.

The blog heading hasn’t changed much other than the addition of more black, which makes it look more modern and interesting.

What Autoblog was really in need for was a clean-up. Over the past year the site has gotten bloated and busy (ads and new features), leading to slow load times. The site is still pretty busy, (especially on the right side) but it has been refined and organized, to speed up the once poor load times.

From this point the site sounds like a perfect one, BUT there is one addition that I do not like, the tags scroll-over buttons at the top of the page. I think they become annoying after scrolling over them a few times, but I personally think tags are useless when it comes to blog posts (leave tags to Flickr).

The new redesign of Autoblog was much need and optimizes the site. The new look 1ups the writing of this car lovers blog. Like cars? Go check out (and try out) the new Autoblog.

(Quick) Comments

Commenting. Either you post them or you don’t, but they have become a must in any form of updated content (blogs, podcasts, videos). I, personally, am not a big commenter because of the comment Nazis who have decided to be the moderator of what people say. I thought comments were a personal opinion on the content you just read.

To make commenting even easier make it possible to comment from the main page. After you read the post or watch the video you can click the “quick comment” button and I little Ajax comment box appears (mock-up below), where you can give your opinion on what you read or saw.

I could see this become very useful in sites like Digg and Slashdot both of which rely heavily on comments. This would in no way replace the old click, read, and comment, type of commenting, but it would allow the lazy or non-commenting people out there to put in their opinion.