Floppy Windows

Courtesy As the Apple Turns, here’s another example of the way Microsoft innovates: copy Apple, but make it useless. In this video, Microsoft demos a “new” windowing effect… looks a lot like the way Mac OS windows minimize to the dock. The problem is, the Windows windows just flap around like a dying fish, eating up processor cycles for no apparent reason. In the Mac OS, the squishing of the window as it minimizes to the dock gives visual feedback of what’s happening to the window. I can’t for the life of me figure out why you’d want a window to shimmy and flap when you drag it around the screen…
While clicking through lots of links, I reached an interesting article from the AP last week touting a new Bill Gates prototype of a PC which is, basically, an iMac. Note the desktop background picture in the story – doesn’t it look familiar?
They claim that this concept prototype includes “seemingly commonsense features that have escaped computer manufacturers.” Features such as:

To log onto the machine, the user simply inserts a special plug into the side of the screen and touches a fingerprint reader.

Yeah, that’s a commonsense feature. Insert your key then have your fingerprint checked. Easy.

In an improvement that has been built into some computers already, devices most commonly accessed by users – the CD-ROM drive and Universal Serial Bus ports – are built into the display.

Been there. Apple (and Gateway and others) done that.
Speaking of what Apple’s done, there’s this:

In the frame around the display, lights indicate whether messages await the user. Those are lit even when the monitor is in screen-saver mode. It would alert users when they first enter their cubicles, Kaneko said.

This is interesting. Apple patented this “idea” already, but they haven’t used it or shown any prototypes with it. Then again, Apple never shows anything until they’re ready to sell.
This prototype that Bill Gates showed off is not slated for production, it’s just for show. But they say that some elements of it will be in computers by the end of the year. Again, they don’t mention that some of them have been in computers for years. Just not computers that run Windows.
Perhaps the scariest thing:

“We’re extending the Windows experience beyond just the screen,” he said. “You’re starting to see these things move out into the physical environment.”

Terrifying – Windows becomes an actual physical thing… shudder!
I just don’t understand the media at all. They pander to power – whether it’s Republicans or Microsoft. There are millions of Macs out there, but they obviously mean nothing at all. The New York Times talks about the Apple influence on this prototype, but NYT is not the pinnacle of journalism this week.

[Update, May 20: In the interest of fairness, I report that the upcoming “Panther” release of OS X is said to include some features which have already appeared in Windows, including the ability to more than one user to log in to a machine and see their own desktops. However, I’m loath to credit that one to Microsoft since Unix has offered multiple user logins for far longer – and OS X does offer multiple user logins, just not graphically.]