[mxfh]

Can't offer any predictions about Google glass, yet I think the Surface analogy just falls flat. It's not about Microsoft's 10k surface it's about failing to get the critical momentum going in the mass market.

There was such a thing called the Tablet PC[1] introduced by Microsoft in 2001, you could get one for below 1500 USD in 2003†. They were marketed as a niche product if at all. For about a decade they were the only available portable devices that offered decent screen resolutions/pixel densities. The software was partly premature yet mostly usable. Some things just take time to mature to be seen as marketable to the consumer market.

In case if screen resolutions just too much time, its just kind of sad that you always seem to have to wait for Apple to push those technologies into bigger markets (touch interfaces/ high resolution displays) it's good to see that there finally is some competition is this area (Google Pixel, Retina Screens) and operation systems with with resolution flexible UI's are finally the norm.

† got a one back then which is still doing its fanless & meanwhile stylusless work as a trusty small home server.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Tablet_PC