IAm Panos Panay, GM of Microsoft Surface, AMAA - Ask Me or My Team Almost Anything

Few questions:

1. How big is the install of Windows RT? Meaning if I get a 32gb unit, how much free space will I have?

2. Can I save downloaded Apps to the SD card so it doesnt take up primary storage space?

3. How awesome is the Surface on a scale of 1 - Awesome?

I am Ricardo Lopez, Test Manager for Surface RT. After the OS, OfficeRT and a bunch of apps, you will still have more that 20GB. As you say, you can always add an SD card and while you cannot add apps there, you can get music, movies and photos there. I am Nigel Tout, Test for Surface RT, don't forget the awesome USB 3.0 and memory sticks and hard drives! Awesome

can you swap in an out media cards? I have a Playstation Vita and it surprised me that you have to shut down the machine to change cards.

This is Ricardo. You can swap cards like you would do in any other PC (no need to shutdown or anything special). Regarding rating, I believe it is extremely awesome.

Would you rather fight 100 surface sized ducks or 1 horse sized surface?

For sure 1 horse sized surface... put too many of these things together, and they are unstoppable.

P :-)

I have an iPad 2 and a Galaxy S2.

Can you tell me something that'll make me want to shift to your platform? I just can't find a reason. What feature does the Surface have that may not seem like much but makes it amazing to use?

Thanks.

I am not sure what you do on your other devices and can not comment on it... however, I know that on Surface you can get a ton of stuff done. Given, we have a full operating system in Windows, we have the full suite of Office available, and the seamless transitioning in and out of different user states with touch cover... the ability to use it all day, use a USB port when needed to connect millions of devices, ultimately you have a full PC at your disposal.... you find yourself accomplishing a ton. Does this help?

I think the seamless transitions from state to state will be one of the best parts of the device!! As you open the cover, close the cover, flip it back, move into 'get it done mode' it will be an awesome experience. You will find yourself being productive when you need to and you can read,watch movies, and surf when you want to....

I also feel like the kickstand opening and closing will make you smile :-)

I am super pumped you pre ordered!!!!

I am really grateful you all took the time to spend with us today. The team and I are excited to be able to share Surface with all of you. I would love to have heard that all of you have pre-ordered the device or are considering to do so soon. We are proud of the product and pumped to see your energy.

Personally I can type about 65 words per minute on the Touch Cover. It has been a pretty cool experience tuning the keyboard and getting to a point where we are able to touch type effectively

What about the type cover? Do you type much faster? I'm wondering if I should get the type cover to take notes at school or if I can learn fast enough on the touch cover

Hi this is Stevie. It depends on how you type. I have been using both for a while, and love them both. I love the sleekness of Touch Cover. Touch Cover has a very special digitizer that we invented.. it senses the impact force of your key presses. We designed super-fast electronics and smart algorithm in the keyboard so that Touch Cover can profile your key press down to a 1ms (1000 times a second). Using that information Touch Cover can infer if the user meant to press the key or not.. It is a smart key. So even though there is no key travel, the user can rest their hands on top of the keyboard and find home position without accidentally triggering keys.. pretty cool! The first time I typed on a full working version of Touch Cover, I typed just as fast as I do on a normal keyboard. I am confident you will be able to type significantly faster on Touch Cover than an onscreen keyboard. And with a little practice you will even do better (maybe even faster!) For folks who really love and really need keys that have travel, then Type Cover is one of the best keyboards I have ever used (desktop or other). It has a super awesome snappy key mechanism that feels great (has a strong hysteresis curve). Honestly both are great… try them both, actually get them both.

Quick question regarding the cover. If you flip the cover back, say to rest the tablet flat on a surface or to hold it, is there a mechanism that disables the keyboard so that it's not randomly typing? (This would be when the cover is flipped to the back of the device)

Hey this is Stevie, yes absolutely. Both TouchCover and TypeCover have sensors that understand orientation relative to Surface… in fact the Type and Touch Covers talk to Surface to figure out their relative position no matter the orientation of gravity of the device (pretty neat!). There are 3 positions modes: Closed (keys and mouse are off), Open to 180 degrees (keyboard and mousepad on), beyond 180 degrees to the back (keys and mouse off). That way you can flip back the covers and feel secure you are not pressing keys by mistake.

Why is there no 3G/4G option for the Surface?

BrettO - We made what we feel is World Class WiFi connectivity. For 3G/4G we looked at several elements when deciding on what features to include. We knew that the primary use was going to be in the home, we looked at tablet sales data 2/3 WiFi, 1/3 Mobile Broadband. Of the 1/3 sold, 1/2 were activated. Phone hotspot / tethering use was also a consideration.

How did you calculate the 8hr battery life estimate? What were the test conditions?

Why is there no NFC integration when WP8 is pushing it heavily?

What was the toughest challenge you faced when designing the Surface?

Pavan, HW lead: We conducted testing across a variety of core scenarios such as local and streaming video playback (watching movies!), audio playback, wireless web browsing and productivity scenarios such as using Office and mail. We tested using different Wi-Fi networks with pre-production hardware and software. Hence the battery life numbers started early in the program as a model with calculations and then get verified with actual device HW and SW.

For the product design experience we were aiming for with Surface, the Mg metal enclosure, including the back case, was critical. This made good antenna design for NFC a trade-off in our development process.

How fast can you (personally) type on the Surface Touch keyboard? How about the Surface Type?

I am Yi-Min and I am on the User Research team. I can type about 86 wpm on the Touch Cover and I am typing on a Pink Touch Cover!

Are you typing on one right now?

Yup! :)

Panos, congratulations on taking MS to the next level.

Some questions:

• Do you think ~$700 is too much for a tablet that does not currently own a share of the market?
• I noticed that the Surface has a resolution of 1366×768 vs the iPad3 2048×1536. Do you think this will affect users considering the Surface vs the iPad ?
• What can us (your fans) realistically do to make Surface the number one tablet out there?
• Will Microsoft release more WinRT compatible applications other than the ones already mentioned in the release specs? What about other software vendors such as Adobe and Corel ?

Thank you and good luck. I will buy a Pink Surface in 10 days :)

Hey I tried to answer this resolution question for another post, but it got stuck.. So I will try here:

Hey this is Stevie. Screen resolution is one component of perceived detail. The true measure of resolvability of a screen called Modulation Transfer Function (MTF), not Pixels. MTF is a combination of both contrast and resolution. There are over a dozen subsystems that effect this MTF number.. Most folks just focus on one number out of dozens that effect perceived detail. Without good contrast resolution decreases. Check out contrast sensitivity of the human eye graph (http://www.telescope-optics.net/images/eye_contrast.PNG) and if you want more see the links below. Basically, as resolution/DPI increases the eye has becomes less sensitive. So as a result, the amount of light in a room and the reflections off the screen have a huge effect on the contrast of the display. In fact, a small amount of reflection can greatly reduce contrast and thus the perceived resolution of the display. With the ClearType Display technology we took a 3 pronged approach to maximize that perceived resolution and optimize for battery life, weight, and thickness. First prong, Microsoft has the best pixel rendering technology in the industry (cleartype 1.0 and 2.0) .. these are exclusive and unique to Windows, it smooths text regardless of pixel count. Second, we designed a custom 10.6” high-contrast wide-angle screen LCD screen. Lastly we optically bonded the screen with the thinnest optical stack anywhere on the market.. something which is more commonly done on phones we are doing on Surface. While this is not official, our current Cleartype measurements on the amount of light reflected off the screen is around 5.5%-6.2%, the new IPad has a measurement of 9.9% mirror reflections (see the displaymate link: http://www.displaymate.com/iPad_ShootOut_1.htm). Doing a side by side with the new iPad in a consistently lit room, we have had many people see more detail on Surface RT than on the Ipad with more resolution.

Some more links to share if you want to know more… (http://www.normankoren.com/Tutorials/MTF.html)... Also This is a great book to read if you really want to get into it: http://www.amazon.com/Contrast-Sensitivity-Effects-Quality-Monograph/dp/0819434965 or more here http://alexandria.tue.nl/extra2/9901043.pdf

EDIT: Hello, this is StevieB again. This is a great discussion. I wanted to elaborate some more. I hope folks understand that I am not saying that one resolution is better than the other. Nor that one display is better than the other. More so that the number of pixels is not the only metric which guarantees detail and image quality. It depends on many factors, some factors for which Surface optimizes for. So in some cases ClearType will look better and in other cases (darker environments) the iPad retina will look better. Further, in a number of cases the differences will be negligible.

Think of it this way. When digital cameras started riding the megapixel curve, some cameras had/have better image quality than cameras with more pixels. How can that be? We all intuitively understand that if a camera lens is poor the resultant image will be poor (low MTF) no matter how many pixels sits behind the lens. The combination of a good lens and a good image sensor results in a good high quality MTF image. That’s the same in a display where the optics are partly in your eye and partly on the display. If the display reflects a lot of room light off the screen it will reduce the contrast of the image, and the resultant image will be harder to see and the information will harder to make out. The contrast sensitivity chart of the eye tells us this. A display system is just like a camera but it runs in reverse (Reciprocity Law of light).

One of the more significant things affecting image quality of interactive displays is the addition of stuff in front of the display to enable capacitive touch. Currently most consumer touch system have a cover glass, and layers of transparent conductors between the cover glass and the display. Anything placed between the eye and the display will effect image quality. Engineering down those effects is one of the innovations we strived for in the ClearType display for Surface.

Because the whole optical stack is fused in the ClearType Display, there is only one significant optical boundary. This is the front surface where the index of refraction changes from 1 in air to about 1.5 in glass—btw this also happens to bring your finger closer to the image on the screen (think how a straw looks under water). So Surface reflects less ambient light, this increases contrast in any lit environment over devices that reflect more room light. Previously, I mentioned contrast and resolution are related. Decreased contrast will obscure high resolution content. They are inseparable, neither one is more or less important than the other. If you have high contrast but low resolution, the MTF (and image quality) is lower. If you have high resolution but low contrast, your MTF (and image quality) will also be lower.

Let me ask you this question. When you look up in the sky how many stars do you see? …. Well it depends on where you are. If you are out in the country there is not much light pollution, and the night sky lights up with stars. If you are in the city, there is a lot of light pollution so you may not see many. The stars are still there, it is the same sky, but the contrast is low, so as a consequence you do not see many stars. No matter how many “pixels” the sky has, you are not going to see anymore stars. On Surface, light pollution is low and as a result you will see more detail over any other device with lesser contrast. In a lit room just hold up a Surface, leave the display off, and hold up another tablet next to it and notice which one has the darker screen. This is your black point, your screen cannot go darker than in this situation.

My goal is to get information out there so that you reach a conclusion based on science. Most people don’t know this, but this is well understood in the displays technical community. Hope this helps!

Does the Surface support Kinect and/or 360 usb controller inputs?

This is Ricardo. We used the 360 usb controllers to play with Surface all the time and they work great. We have not tried Kinect yet.

I figure I'll ask a couple 'dumb' questions no one else is asking, just so they at least get asked.

• Any likelyhood of laser-etching designs on the back, as with the zune? It'd make even more sense for this device, as it will be more often in a vertical, unblocked position during normal use.

• Any chance of getting a custom keyboard printed on a touch cover? (I'm sure I already know the answer to this question).

Hey, nice idea! Keep the suggestions coming :)

Hey there! First of all, I'm super excited about the way Microsoft is heading with the new Surface.. Needless to say I already ordered one ;)

I got a couple of quick questions..

• What kind of devices I can or can't use with the USB-Port. Can I connect a printer? A regular keyboard? Can I connect a cell-phone to charge it?
• For how long have you been using one? Are there things that you used to do with your desktop PC or notebook that you now almost exclusively do with your Surface?
• Up until now it has been my understanding that there will be whitelisted flash-support in IE10 on Windows RT, is this information correct? Can you name a few sites that will be supported?
• At the keynote you guys said Surface with Windows RT will support microSD and Surface with Windows 8 Pro will support microSDXC.. today I read that both will support microSDXC.. has this been changed?

Again, lot's of respect for what you have created and I'm really looking forward to holding my Surface for the first time! Also thanks for the AMA!

//EDIT: edited for easier reading..

BrettO here - Thanks for the excitement! We certainly feel it. Lots of questions so let me do my best. USB support - Numerous reports of 100's of millions existing USB devices supported. Printers, Keyboards, Cameras - yes. Can I charge a phone - yes. How long have I been using one - >> 6 months microSDXC for both.

Is Internet Explorer in Windows RT desktop mode able to run full flash or is it limited in any way?

We are trying to focus on Surface in this IAMA but the IE team is doing a twitter chat from 12-1pm and can likely answer your questions then. Follow the #winchat hashtag.

How does the Surface team interact with other Microsoft teams? Meaning, did you work with other hardware divisions at Microsoft? Did other divisions have input on Surface?

Side-question: How does the original Surface (Now PixelSense) team feel about you stealing their name? :P

We used a ton of our learnings and history to be sure we had the right balance of support and expertise to build Surface. That said, we built Surface in a very confidential matter. Only those that needed know, did know.

The Pixelsense team is part of the Surface team :-)... They feel pretty good!

Does the kickstand arrangement work for someone who wants to type with Surface on their lap? To me it looks like it's only stable on a table top.

I want to get a Surface for the wife, but she'd be typing Facebook updates while lounging on the couch. Would that work?

hey, I've been using my Surface for a couple of month now. It works on your lap in multiple ways. Typing on the lap works fine, Surface is great for typing while on your couch. There are so many ways it folds and adjusts to your typing needs. You will be pleasantly surprised. :)

Yes, she can certainly type Facebook updates from the couch while using Surface

I wanted to ask where your philosophy for design language comes from.

To me, it's a refined industrial look. It's like Motorola products if they weren't cheesy or 80's inspired, or apple products with a dose of testosterone and a dash of fighter jet inspiration.

The fact that you make it functional with the lip on the non RT version is just a further testament to the strength of the design.

We saw this in the Zune HD and I absolutely loved it. I almost bought one on that alone.

I absolutely hope you guys carry this through to the Xbox next/720/Durango. It would be awesome to see a console with a black metal exterior.

Hi there, ralf here, creative director of Surface. Designing the surface was an effort to create a great stage for the software. We wanted to make sure that the hardware was a physical extension of our software. The language we found came together by choosing the right materials and revealing the essence of out an idea. Make it comfortable to hold, light and strong.

Can you possibly expand on this? It kind of sounds like PR fluff that any company would say about their tablet design. The fact that you more faithfully execute it is beside the point.

What drives the black matte look (for the black)? The sharp angles? Why do you work with metal instead of plastic?

When you look at other pieces of design, what are your main inspirations for the surface?

Hey, here a bit more context. We started at looking at the software and thought about how to extend it into a physical product. We tried to stay away from any classic design language stuff, we didn't want to have a bunch of styling in the way, we wanted to build a bridge between you and your digital things. We developed the idea that later turned into the keyboard covers and kickstand. Most of the time we spent on revealing the essence of this idea: How can we make it comfortable to hold? How do we fit our connectors, and so on.. Step by step we found the design. The language behind it is a point of view to make a very useful product. I don't believe in defining a design language in shape. A design language should be a consistent approach to execute the vision you have.
Using magnesium allowed us to make our product thin, light and strong. The color we chose lets the physical product fade into the background and pronounces the screen as the main act.

... a stage for your software

Are there any details about the Surface Pro you can tell us that we don't already know?

You know everything that we can tell at this point.

Why did you and your team chose USB 2.0 instead of USB 3.0?

Pavan: The full size USB 2.0 port on Surface supports hundreds of millions of devices that are out there... We chose USB 2.0 based on capability of the ARM SoCs during our development timeframe.

[deleted]

Hey this is Stevie. Screen resolution is one component of perceived detail. The true measure of resolvability of a screen called Modulation Transfer Function (MTF), not Pixels. MTF is a combination of both contrast and resolution. There are over a dozen subsystems that effect this MTF number.. Most folks just focus on one number out of dozens of items that effect perceived detail. Without good contrast resolution decreases. Check out contrast sensitivity of the human eye graph (http://www.telescope-optics.net/images/eye_contrast.PNG) and if you want more see the links below. Basically, as resolution/DPI increases the eye has becomes less sensitive. So as a result, the amount of light in a room and the reflections off the screen have a huge effect on the contrast of the display. In fact, a small amount of reflection can greatly reduce contrast and thus the perceived resolution of the display. With the ClearType Display technology we took a 3 pronged approach to maximize that perceived resolution and optimize for battery life, weight, and thickness. First prong, Microsoft has the best pixel rendering technology (cleartype 1.0 and 2.0) .. both these are exclusive and unique to Windows, it smooths text regardless of pixel count. Second, we designed a custom 10.6” high-contrast wide-angle screen LCD screen. Lastly we optically bonded the screen with the thinnest optical stack anywhere on the market.. something much more commonly done on phones we are doing on Surcace. While this is not official our Cleartype measurements on the amount of light reflected off the screen is around 5.5%-6.2%, the new IPad has a measurement of 9.9% mirror reflections (see the displaymate link: http://www.displaymate.com/iPad_ShootOut_1.htm). Doing a side by side with the new ipad in a consistently lit room, we have had many people see more detail on Surface RT than on the Ipad with more resolution.

Some more links to share if you want to know more… (http://www.normankoren.com/Tutorials/MTF.html)... Also This is a great book to read if you really want to get into it: http://www.amazon.com/Contrast-Sensitivity-Effects-Quality-Monograph/dp/0819434965 or more here http://alexandria.tue.nl/extra2/9901043.pdf

1) Can we get some non english layouts for keyboards in the US (specially spanish or latin american)?

2) Is there any chance we will get this in Latin America ever? (we never got the zune for instance)

Of the primary launch Markets we are launching in, we have keyboards specific to those languages

We are not announcing any new markets beyond what we said today. However, we will for sure be expanding to more markets in the future.

Will the SkyDrive desktop app be available for Surface RT/Windows RT? If not, will there be a way to sync SkyDrive files offline in the Surface RT? I think this is a pretty important feature.

it's pre-installed with Windows 8

No, I'm not talking about the SkyDrive Metro app, because there is no offline syncing capability in the Metro version. I'm curious about the desktop SkyDrive app, which offers that syncing functionality.

To be honest, the best people to ask work at SkyDrive. They are responsive on their twitter handle @SkyDrive.

How can I join your team?

Pavan: Great question! http://careers.microsoft.com/

You'll find posting for the Surface team...

What would be your best advice for up and coming computer scientist majors as well as software engineers? I am currently a senior in college and nervous about getting out into the industry

Awesome question. Go into programming that allows you to understand both Software and Hardware. This puts you in the best possible position moving forward.

Don't use programming as a boundary, and think of it as a gateway. Take every chance you have to learn hardware in the process.

How did you determine the angle that the kickstand allows Surface to lean to?

We wanted the screen to be normal to the face. Voila, you then have a 22 degree angle.

Seriously we did a ton of studies around lighting, reflection, ergonomics, table height, etc.... and then made sure it looked perfect and felt perfectly balanced.

Can you share some of the thought-process that lead to Microsoft building the Surface? It feels like a big departure from the company's tendency to stay out of PC device hardware.

We have evolved the words, but the principle has stayed the same. We are focused on being a Stage for Windows . It is good to keep in mind that we have been in the Hardware business for sometime now, and with the combination of our history along with our very clear target of making Windows 8 great, it came together very clearly!! We really did start from a blank piece of paper and built the experience from the ground up knowing that we wanted to get it perfect as we designed the experence of Surface along side the experience of Windows 8.

Will the SURFACE type cover be available in colours?

Currently only the Touch Cover is available in Colors.... but keep the feedback coming and you never know what will happen :-)

I've seen it mentioned but not directly addressed... Short and sweet: Why is there no mention of NFC or GPS on the Spec Sheet? Are either there? If neither are present... why?

Pavan: There isn't a NFC feature in Surface RT; We use Wi-Fi based location services, the device doesn't have a physical GPS sensor.

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YES!

Will Surface be able to import images from a digital camera or card reader via its USB port? Or is that for signed devices only?

BrettO here - Absolutely, uSD and USB 2.0. Most cameras will show up as mass storage device via USB.

Absolutely. uSD and USB2.0. Most cameras will show up as mass storage devices.

How much will the device cost in the UK? Thanks!

If you go to the Microsoft Store website in the UK you can get full details on UK pricing. Same for every market.

Any comment on real world battery life. For instance, can you make it from Seattle to Tokyo or Beijing on a charge?

Surface RT will provide you all day battery life. I've tested on the ride from Seattle to Beijing with a stop in Tokyo :)

Hi Panos, first of all congratulations with Surface, it looks amazing.

My main question is a slightly selfish one but hey, I want a Surface!

When if at all will Surface be coming to Ireland? Microsoft have a massive EMEA HQ here in Dublin, yet Zune Pass/Xbox Music, Bing Local Scout on WP7 and now Surface show no sign of coming here.

I understand that you're not logisitics/retail, but is there any information you could give me regarding more countries but specifically Ireland?

Also, what's your favourite feature of Surface, what part of it makes you smile when you do/see?

Thanks! :)

I can't answer the specific question of when it will make it to Ireland or any other markets we have not announced yet... but stay tuned...

That said, my favorite feature on Surface is hard to define. I love the product a it works all together. I can tell you this, when I see people using it, I can not be happier and more excited.

Surface team, Favorite apps so far on your Surface devices?

BrettO - Strat Logic Game. My 8 yr old - Doodle God. My 5 yr old - Bubble Star. My Wife - Kindle.

Will Surface support the use of Bluetooth headsets? For instance, could I use a Lync or Skype client on Surface with my Plantronics headset to make conference calls or chat with my wife/family?

Pavan: Yes, Surface supports Bluetooth 4.0 and will work with Bluetooth headsets. We have built-in dual digital mics, stereo speakers in the device and front/rear facing HD cameras. You can also plug-in USB conferencing peripherals. Surface RT can certainly be used for video and audio calls with wife/family.

I keep hearing 90 days from RT launch that the Pro version will come out. Is this set in stone? Can you perhaps give a more specific date?

I love that you are excited about the product. At this time we are not giving a specific date, however, you can expect much of the same as you are seeing today when we do have a date to give.