This article originally published in Self-Service World magazine, February 2007.
Microsoft shipped its new operating system to consumers Jan. 30. The previous 27 months had seen an unprecedented beta-testing process in which hundreds of thousands of volunteers put the system through its paces. During the test period, more than 2.25 million copies of the beta were downloaded.For the self-service industry, Vista represents some amazing new possibilities — with a few important caveats. The operating system allows developers to create rich, interactive experiences that can scale to any size screen. But hardware requirements are steep, and deployers will have to weigh whether or not it is worth the upgrade for their projects.
Much of the attention Vista has received has focused on its new graphical interface, which is nothing short of amazing. The Windows Aero GUI represents the first time since the release of Windows 95 that the entire Windows user experience has been taken back to the drawing board — every aspect, from buttons to dialog boxes to icons to fonts, has been redesigned. The emphasis is on aesthetics, with liberal use of 3-dimensional graphics, transparency and animation.
Aero comes with some steep hardware requirements, though. To take advantage of the new look and feel requires a 1 GHz-processor, 1 gigabyte of system RAM and a minimum of 128 megabytes of video RAM. That poses a challenge for small-form-factor units like mini-kiosks, many of which are not physically capable of taking a sufficient hardware upgrade.
Mark Justice Hinton, author of "PC Magazine's Windows Vista Solutions" (Wiley Publishing), said Vista is designed to run on most PCs sold in the last two years. However, users wanting to take advantage of the new graphic interface will need something very powerful.
He noted that Microsoft designates two classes of Vista-ready PCs: "Vista Capable" and "Premium Ready." The former has lower hardware requirements, but won't be able to take advantage of the Aero interface.
But Vista's advanced graphical capabilities don't stop at the interface. In a Dec. 12 report, Forrester Research's Ted Schadler discussed what he said was the "first killer Vista application," a proprietary tool called Times Reader, which streams the content of the New York Times to the user's desktop.
"I was okay with the Web reading experience — but the Times Reader blows that away," he wrote. "The fonts are gorgeous, text flows around graphics even if you resize the font, it looks like a newspaper but on bond paper, and aging eyes will stop peering and start reading. This is a see-it-to-believe-it experience. Vista's graphics library and capabilities make this possible."
The foundation of the experience
The core of the Vista graphical experience is the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), which allows developers to easily manipulate video. Built-in processes make it possible to invert, rotate and dynamically size video elements and clips.
"A kiosk could have three video clips playing on the screen at one time," writes Tim Gruver, Microsoft retail technology strategy director, in a whitepaper on Vista and kiosks. "A user could then bring a particular video clip to the foreground as others remain in the background or switch between the video clips with a simple click. This means that multiple video clips can now be easily incorporated into kiosk applications to display product information."
Perhaps more importantly, the WPF makes it possible to create elements that are "resolution-agnostic" — that is, they grow and shrink dynamically so that they look good no matter at what screen resolution they are displayed. A new emphasis on vector graphics means images and elements can be greatly increased in size without pixelization — which holds great promise for large-format digital signage applications.
WPF also has ramifications for remote content management and updating. Applications can be posted to a Web server; clients that "subscribe" to the server will be automatically updated with the new application.
Heavy-duty requirements
Because Vista comes with some significant hardware requirements it is not a good choice for small-form-factor kiosks like counter-top and mini-units. Michael Cherry, lead analyst at consultancy Directions on Microsoft, said the best choice for those systems remains Windows XP Embedded.
The kiosk's application also is a large determinant; devices that are primarily transactional and small by their very nature (price look-up units, for instance) will not reap enough benefit from Vista to merit an upgrade or replacement.
That said, there are plenty of applications that will go from good to great with a move to Vista.
"The controlling factor should be, ‘Would the kiosk application benefit from Aero or being able to fully exploit the Windows Presentation Foundation?'" Cherry said. "(If the answer is yes,) then it is worth putting together the hardware that will run it."
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| Vista powers the graphics on The North Face kiosks, which feature revolving video of merchandise that users can control with a fingertip. |
One of the first developers to show off Vista-based kiosk software was Microsoft itself, which exhibited a kiosk for cold-weather sportswear brand The North Face at the 2006 Retail Systems show in Chicago. The interface relies heavily on Vista's eye-catching graphics to help merchandise products. It features three revolving videos the user can rotate with a fingertip. The videos, while playing, morph as they revolve. Each video features energetic adventures from North Face expeditions.
One of the first kiosk developers to release a Vista application will be D2 Sales. Though many kiosk software developers say they're taking a wait-and-see approach to Vista, wary of its costly hardware necessities and possible flaws, D2's president, Sandra Nix, said Vista allows more flexibility for branding interfaces and creating smooth user experiences.
Nix said Vista has done a great job for their first project, the details of which are still protected under a non-disclosure agreement, and that the Windows Presentation Foundation proved much more stable than Flash for creating graphics.
"Our goal is to develop a rich and exciting experience for the user. Vista allows for that," Nix said. "This particular project is really leveraging the Windows Presentation Foundation for graphics. It takes the content away from that Win32 look: the square, boxy ‘Oh, that's Windows' look."
