ISE, Amsterdam – 1st February, 2011 - At the 2011 Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) show in Amsterdam, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Microsoft Corp. unveiled the next generation of the Microsoft Surface experience featuring PixelSense technology. Giving LCD panels the power to see without the use of cameras, Microsoft Surface builds on its first version to include Samsung’s leading display technology. It is now possible for people to share, collaborate and explore together using a large, thin display that recognises fingers, hands and other objects placed on the screen.
This experience will come to life for business customers later in 2011 across 23 countries. Already in 2011; Dassault Aviation, Fujifilm Corp, Red Bull GmbH, Royal Bank of Canada and Sheraton Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc, announced that they will deploy the new product.
Phil Gaut, General Manager for Display, Samsung UK says: “Samsung has collaborated with Microsoft to give the Surface experience a new, thin design with powerful vision-based capabilities in the LCD market. Having already unveiled the product in the U.S. to an extremely positive response, Samsung is excited to continue its collaboration with Microsoft and unveil the Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface to the UK markets. The Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface delivers an interactive experience not available anywhere else and will change the way companies engage with their customers.”
Panos Panay, General Manager, Microsoft Surface, added, “Microsoft continues to innovate in vision-based interaction and software designed for touch. With the introduction of the next generation of Surface, using PixelSense technology, we’ll bring more tables and walls to life with amazing natural experiences for people to enjoy together. We partnered with Samsung because of its strengths in LCD technology, hardware design and manufacturing, and worldwide marketing and sales of large-format displays. The companies have built an incredibly successful collaboration that moved from invention to development to manufacturing and sales of a high-quality, industrialised commercial product.”
Microsoft and Samsung worked closely to develop the LCD panel and the new hardware product, which is being manufactured by Samsung and will be sold to business customers through its broad distribution and reseller network.
Phil Gaut added: “With Samsung’s cutting-edge interactive LCD technology and Microsoft’s innovation in vision-based systems, together we were able to define a new LCD architecture. This brand-new concept of LCD provides image-sensing technology along with massive multi-touch capability and enhanced horizontal durability, which are specialised for the Microsoft Surface experience.”
Samsung SUR40 will bring companies in the UK new ways to help drive sales, showcase their brand, and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. The product features include:
PixelSense
PixelSense gives an LCD display the power to recognise fingers, hands and objects placed on the screen, including more than 50 simultaneous touch points. With PixelSense, pixels in the display see what is touching the screen and that information is immediately processed and interpreted.
Microsoft Surface software
Microsoft Surface software provides business customers with a premier touch-first experience for their end users, built on the principles of direct interaction and together computing. It also allows commercial application developers to use a new version of the Microsoft Surface SDK and familiar Microsoft development tools to take full advantage of the massive multi-touch and object recognition capabilities of PixelSense and deliver experiences not possible on any other platform.
Designed for commercial environments
The product is designed to meet the challenges of active usage in demanding locations such as retail, hospitality and education.
Thin form factor with multiple configuration options
The product is four inches thin, which makes it easy to use horizontally, hang vertically with the VESA mount, or embed in walls or customised enclosures. Standard legs are available or customers can design and attach their own.
Forty-inch full high-definition (HD) 1080p screen
The 40-inch screen enables unparalleled multi-user experiences in full HD 1080p, with a 16:9 aspect ratio and 1920x1080 resolution.
Powerful embedded system
The product uses the embedded AMD Athlon™ II X2 Dual-Core Processor 2.9GHz paired with the AMD Radeon HD 6700M Series GPU featuring DirectX 11 support to deliver significant processing horsepower and outstanding graphics capability.
In addition, Microsoft will showcase Samsung SUR40 in Microsoft Stores. Microsoft Surface is an important part of the store experience today, and the new product will further enhance that experience, providing customers with games, maps, music and applications to allow for product comparisons. Microsoft intends to deploy two to four Samsung SUR40 units per Microsoft Store location.
Availability and Pricing
Samsung SUR40 will be available in the UK, in August 2011 and pricing is still to be confirmed.
