What is unknown fact until the birth of the 84-inch huge Windows 10 terminal "Surface Hub" to be released in Japan?

Microsoft's 84-inch 4K display terminal equipped with Windows 10 "Surface HubIt was officially announced that the selling price of $ 19,999 (about 2.5 million yen), but Surface Hub is manufactured in Portland, USA. For Portland's Surface Hub manufacturing site that Microsoft has not publicly disclosed,Fast CompanyI am covering it.

The Untold Story of Microsoft's Surface Hub | Fast Company | Business + Innovation
http://www.fastcompany.com/3046819/the-untold-story-of-microsofts-surface-hub

Surface Hub is manufactured at Wilson Building in the suburb of Portland, about 300 kilometers away from Redmond, the US company with headquarters in the US. About the Wilson Building Factory that manufactures this Surface Hub, Microsoft did not publicly comment, and Fast Campany who visited by the interview reported that no letter indicating "Microsoft" was found on the road marking etc. on the premises. At the Wilson Building Factory, which is thought not to be open to the public by Microsoft, a state-of-the-art assembly robot, a clean room, etc. are introduced, and now Surface Hub is silently manufactured.


Wilson Building Factory is headed by Korean AmericanJeff HanMr. Han once,TEDAt the conference, he is a technician who is known for demonstrating "multi-touch technology" to perform touch operation with multiple fingers and showing the high level of technical capabilities to the public.


The state of the TED presentation at that time can be confirmed in the following movie.

Jeff Han: Unveiling the genius of multi-touch interface design - YouTube


Han got inspiration on multi touch in 2002 when he was doing research at New York University and started full-scale research and development in 2005. And in February 2006 we completed multi touch technology and announced at TED. To the high degree of technical perfection it was surprising voice from the audience at the venue and a sigh was issued at the same time.

Han announced multi touch technology with TED before the iPhone appeared. When Apple 's CEO Steve Jobs announced the iPhone in January 2009, he proclaimed "I invented the multi - touch" at a high level, but Mr. Han touched the multi - touch technology at a higher level long before that That is why it was completed.


Han launched Perceptive Pixel (PPI) in 2006 and began selling multi touch technology for business. High technical strength of PPI won numerous awards. Especially in the report of the US presidential election in 2008, high-performance displays capable of multi-touch operation spread widely, expanding as the television media explained the situation of voting capture battle using PPI's touch display We have succeeded in raising high profitability by leading the market of multi touch display.

At that time, Microsoft is also working on a huge display capable of touch operation, and in 2007 it has announced a Windows Vista machine that can be operated with touch, built into the table with a screen size of 40 inches. At that time, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had a magnificent vision of nurturing a huge enterprise specialized in software, mainly Windows, as a hardware company, and the "table PC" It was planned to introduce it to casinos, mobile phone shops, etc. After all, development ceased without seeing the eyes of the day.


Han, who saw the iPhone sweeping around the world with multi-touch technology as a weapon, begins to question the promise of a display that can be operated with mere multi touch. In addition, he said that he began hoping for vertical integration that could do everything from designing and developing devices to selling to manufacturing. When Mr. Han wanted to disseminate high technology to the world more widely, we will receive a proposal for acquisition from Microsoft that acknowledged the high technical power of PPI.

It seems that not only Ballmer but CEO Bill Gates was involved in the acquisition negotiations of PPI, and it is obvious from this fact that Microsoft valued PPI very much. According to Mr. Han, Gates said "I'd love to see PPI's technology fall down from the sky (all over the world)", Ballmer praised the company to discard the office's whiteboard and introduce PPI's display He said that he was eager to argue.

ByAanjhan Ranganathan

Thus Mr. Han decided to join Microsoft, PPI will be bought and integrated by Microsoft in 2012. Strangely a few weeks before Microsoft's acquisition of PPI, Microsoft officially announced that it will announce the first hardware product Surface and advance into the hardware business.

Originally, as a division of Microsoft it was a PPI with its research and development environment inside our company, but under the policy of Mr. Balmer who promotes aggressive structural reform such as acquiring Nokia's mobile division, it is incorporated in the hardware division It was. However, Mr. Ballmer resigned in February 2014 and it is newSatia NaderaWhen Mr. became CEO, we have renewed our previous policy. Under the name of "Mobile First" and "Cloud First" CEO Nadera, the former PPI team in the hardware division seemed to be in danger of survival, but Nedera CEO "Interested in" mobile capable terminal " However, based on the judgment that "mobile experience" is consistent with a new vision ", it was a go-ahead for the development of the PC" Surface Hub "equipped with a huge touch operable display.


Next-generation Windows OS developed for the integration of various devices such as PC, smart phone, tablet, Xbox, IoT terminal "Windows 10Was decided to be adopted also in the huge touch display terminal "Surface Hub" used for business purposes, and the Surface Hub team led by Mr. Han moved to Portland to avoid eye contact. Surface Hub is a PC with Windows 10 with 84-inch 4K resolution display, which is installed mainly in the conference room and uses a built-in camera and a Skype application to make a meeting with a remote place, multiple people touch It is now being developed as a terminal that discusses and exchanges information synchronously and bi - directionally with terminals in remote areas.

As for the device which Surface Hub is, it can be understood by looking at the following article.

Microsoft announced the huge terminal "Surface Hub" with 84 inch 4K display - GIGAZINE


Microsoft has not revealed the size of the Surface Hub development team, but it is seen that there are hundreds of developers. Han, who plays its central role, told the Fast Company, "Although it may sound prideful, we do not have any competitors, there have been products with large screen touch screens However, I believe there is a Surface Hub in a different location from those products. " As one of the reasons, as far as Mr. Han knows, only two companies in the world have a capacitive touch sensor system that can similarly detect a touch operation by a finger and a touch operation by a pen tool. One of them is PPI and the other company is Israel 's N - Trig, which develops the touch manipulation technology adopted by Surface, and Microsoft has already acquired N - Trig in May 2015.


Surface Hub has a 55-inch model with an Intel Core i5 processor installed for $ 6,999 (about 880,000 yen), and an 84-inch model equipped with an Intel Core i7 processor is $ 19,999 (about 2.5 million yen) At the Wilson Building Factory, it is being manufactured quietly with an assembly machine.


All members except the liquid crystal panel are manufactured at the Wilson Building Factory, and it is said that it will be produced in the United States, not overseas bases such as China.


Although it is Surface Hub where the development / production base is located in the United States because it is required for high quality for business, Mr. Han said "It is extremely helpful because there is no need to send detailed instructions to the factory in China by phone." He told me he was talking about joke.


Considering the touch operation with a huge display, "Start button" seems to be arranged in the center of the screen.


Surface Hub will be released in September 2015 in 24 countries including Japan. If Surface Hub gets popularized in the business scene, the white board in Wilson Building Factory may be replaced by Surface Hub.