In the wake of the Surface Studio’s reception, Microsoft has doubled down on its support for the enterprise-facing Surface Hub — the massive 84-inch digital whiteboard. First, we saw details of a try-and-buy program for the Surface Hub and today, Microsoft has unveiled an “engineer’s tour” of the Surface Hub, guided by engineering director Peter Oehler.
Let’s be honest — the Surface Hub isn’t exactly the kind of thing you’d pick up at Best Buy and hang in your living room. The 84-inch digital whiteboard starts at $22,000, with a smaller 55-inch model available for only $9,000. This is absolutely a business-oriented product, and that’s reflected in Microsoft’s sales pitch.
The Surface Hub itself features more than just a gigantic touchscreen. It’s designed from the bottom up to be a productivity tool, the kind of thing you’d hang in a conference room and use to guide company-wide meetings — rather than a single workstation.
Engineering director Peter Oehler illustrates Microsoft’s strategy to push the Surface Hub to business customers in his “engineer’s tour.” He goes on to describe the impressive engineering behind the Surface Hub, as well as offer a few brief examples of how it could improve a workplace.
The Hub is chock-full of sensors, including not only an enormous array of multi-touch sensors, but also a set of infrared cameras that can detect when someone approaches the device. Featuring two HD cameras, and a series of microphones, the Hub also doubles as a teleconferencing platform, allowing users to share their screen while teleconferencing.
While it may be prohibitively expensive for many workplaces, Microsoft has made an effort to soften that particular financial blow with its try-and-buy program, and by some accounts it seems to be working. According to On MSFT, Microsoft is ramping up production to meet increased demand from business customers.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.