Microsoft's glimpse of the future
REDMOND, Wash.--At Microsoft's TechFest, it takes a little imagination to see how the research technologies might eventually come to market.
A new video from Microsoft shows in an elegant, if utopian way, what it might look like if all of those gadgets came together several years hence. Earlier on Friday, Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop showed the video in a speech at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.
As I noted in my interview with Stephen Elop, the hardest thing for me to imagine wasn't that in several years time, all our walls will be displays, but rather that Microsoft will have become so efficient in getting all of its product groups working together.
Ian Sands, who works on future-related matters for the Microsoft Business Division, showed me the video earlier this week. The work, he said, brings together about 12 different projects that his unit is working on as part of Microsoft's long-term planning, a system known as Quests. Sands said that Microsoft is looking not just at the technological challenges, but also the organizational ones.
"It's forcing us to look at those issues," Sands said.
In any case, it's a pretty cool future tech video (I've embedded a somewhat shortened version below). The full version that Elop showed at Wharton earlier today included future implementations of a number of technologies that were on display at TechFest. It was pretty cool to see that someone is already looking at how those different things might interact together.
Among the TechFest projects that are evident in the video are SecondLight, a technology that allows a surface computer to project multiple displays, NanoTouch, a means for creating touch input on the back of a small electronic device, and a computerized receptionist.
"In concert, these things could have a broad impact," Sands said.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
Everything had its start. http://www.reallifecomics.com/archive/070330.html
Exhibit B: A bloated version of an already bloated office suit, complete with an ugly new UI that is nonsensical and ill-conceived. Ever seen 6 dialogs just to do something simple?
Exhibit C: A browser that is a follower of Firefox and would not even exist if not for the wily fox. It is also still a required part of the OS, meaning it is a malware vector.
Exhibit D: A failure in almost every way. HD DVD? Check! $1 billion dollars to fix the incompetence of the dev team? check! Unless you discount that $1 billion, XBOX hasn't made dime one. Wii is eating its lunch.
Exhibit E: Mobile 7??? LOL No comment necessary
Exhibit F: *** is innovative about this? It is nothing. Hotmail was solid until MS bought it and ruined it. It is also where 70% of spam originates.
Not only do they not innovate they are not leaders, they are followers.
Did you think before you posted that? Obviously not.
Its a Mac. Not a MAC. MAC is
Media
Access
Control
Also mac osx do not get BSoD
stop deceiving your self. you know the mac get BSOD. you can google it or youtube it.
Mac's get Kernel Panics, not BSoD.
Exactly. BSoD is the error message displayed when the windows kernel fails. In Macintosh the screen is overlayed with a message that says Your computer encountered an error and must restart Hold down the power button for 5 seconds.
Linux rarely has the kernel fail because of how it generally has other parts fail and it has seperate error message for each. Most commonly it is the x-server.
Microsoft is certainly creator of wealth and has good number of intelligent people working on many ideas. Just by showing one example in their portfolio of products which is lagging does not prove that they are not creative. Your hate towards Microsoft is your prerogative.. spread love not hate.
Cheers
The one that stood out the most to me was the electronic updating of grocery stores prices...now that I think about it, why don't grocery stores have that implemented already?!
It would save them so much money/time, since they wouldn't have to have manual labourers l changing prices all around the store on a regular basis!
"How about not having to stand in line? Just walk out with your cart through a scanner and have your bank account debited accordingly?"
That technology exists now with RFID's and QuickPay for some convenience stores. There are other similar offerings- it only requires each item to have an RFID and it can work just great.
Some people still need that time at the checkout lane to fiddle with writing- then rewriting a check manually, fumble for expired coupons, or argue with the cashier as if they had the power to change the price of tomato soup just because your sister in law in Detroit pays 10 cents less for the same thing.
for example check the catalog of RFCs by author:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcauthor.htm
see how many RFCs were written by Microsoft, IBM, Sun, Cisco and other real innovative companies that do real R&D.
then check how many RFCs were written by Apple.
MS would be wise to focus on today's system first, making sure that the average home user can easily set up shared printer, router, wireless network, home server, pc-to-pc networking, etc. with no external assistance.
you are confused between innovation and technical application. the problem is Microsoft one hand competes with Apple on other hand with Sony and on other hand with Oracle, IBM and SUN. So when you say Microsoft is moribund I only can laugh off these simplistic assertions. OK, do you count the patents filed nope? The Apple phenomenon is primarily American, outside the States Apple does not have significant foot-print, yes they do some nice stuff, I would give credit to apple for that and that is why I am owner of a IPhone and Powerbook. Having said that I cannot stand the general ignorance of people when they talk about lack of innovation from Microsoft. Robotic Studio, F# to Singularity to XBOX 360 to kernel in Windows 7, microsoft does innovation the only thing is it not packaged the way apple packages and the media wont go ga-ga on it because of their wet-dreams with apple and google. Educate yourself before making ignorant claims. You don't like Microsoft but it is still the massive Software company with lot of smart people. For all their fallacies they are still the Numero Uno.
vista was stillborn, ie is getting leapfrogged by firefox, chrome and safari and the xbox has the highest failure rate of any consumer product i can remember.
The XBox didn't come out until after the Playstation and wouldn't have sold any units at all except it was associated with Microsoft.
Windows isn't exactly cutting edge. The interface for Windows 7 is as close as possible to KDE 4.X. ( Yes, MS has used a tool bar since as early as I can remember, but so does every other OS in existence with a GUI )
Silverlight wasn't even used on the MS website the last time I checked, that may have changed, but it still goes a long way towards proving it wasn't ready then and really isn't ready now.
IE is a joke. When I used XP, I installed Firefox in order to stop most of the popups and spyware as well as most of the viruses that I was privy to otherwise (I actually used IE prior to switching so yes, I do know what I'm talking about). Now that I'm on Linux, I wouldn't install IE for any reason unless I was a web developer and it was required by my job to code for IE.
The Zune failed on a massive level and still hasn't caught on. I've seen the device, it's ok. A friend of mine uses it, but of course, she uses Windows. Try using a Zune on OS X or Linux and see where you get.
There's a difference between innovation and lock-in. That vid doesn't show innovation. It tries to paint a pretty picture of an all MS future. The reality would be quite different.
Silverlight Has been on the Microsoft website since they released it, they just did it in phases. With more than 65% of computers using IE, I cant see how you can call that a joke. Also, why would Microsoft waste their money on by making the Zune OSX compatible. Usually people use the iPod first, and then get attracted to these dummy machines that just look good for who knows what reason. So 99.999% of the time an OSX user would never consider anything than one of those MP3 players. ( I still dont get why some stores label their portable music player section "iPod & MP3 players", idiots) And when it comes to linux, why even bother, almost no one makes drivers for those things anyways.
The innovations in the slide show depict some practical office stuff which really doesn't look all that revolutionary beside what we have already. It just doesn't fire the imagination, nor is it depicting anything particularly revolutionary.
I get more excitement and more feeling of being in the future by just walking into an Apple Store. The may well be selling today's technology but they do it in such a way that it has pizzazz. But then so many of the Apple stuff of the past has become the reality of today - from the GUI, the mouse, the modern form factor of the laptop, music stores, app stores, iPods, multi-touch phones. Sure Apple was rarely first with most of those things, but they put it together in such a way that they drove the adoption of these technologies by the masses and people tend to associate Apple with innovation while Microsoft is perceived as the stodgy but dependable guy in an office type software.
Microsoft has got a real problem when its real innovations produce a yawn while Apple creates the feeling of innovation out of thin air.
You are giving innovation credit to a company for things it did not innovate.
Apple did not invent the GUI. They came up with their own version of the GUI, just like Microsoft came up with their own version.
Apple did not invent the Mouse. They came up with their own version of the Mouse, just like Microsoft and its partners did.
Apple did not invent the modern form factor of the laptop. Again they just came up with their own version.
Apple did not invent music stores. Again they came up with their own version.
In fact the only thing on your list that Apple can lay claim to is the iPod. (That's kind of a duh... like saying Dell invented the Latitude Laptop. It's a brand.)
Apple has driven the adoption of a number of technologies, but their marketing generally uses a snobby type of image that does little for long term success. It has generally relied on being one of the most proprietary companies, working hard to prevent innovation and creativity. People generally buy stuff because of it's brand, and tend to believe what Apple marketing says just because they say it.
Thus you get people who think that Apple invented the GUI and the mouse.
It is true that Microsoft innovations, may not be next year's success or the year after, but as some people have pointed out Microsoft is one of the few companies that actually does do alot of innovation, and most people don't know it because it is happening behind the scenes.
It's alot like the real inventor of the GUI, who actually worked for Xerox. Or the inventor of the mouse Douglas Engelbert. Where did Apple fit in? It was jus one of a number of comapnies that came out with early consumer computers after IBM came out with the first.
While Apple can take credit for a few things, I would not rate them high on innovation.
reading ftw
I'll think you'll find that it was MS who drove the adoption of the GUI and mouse amongst other things. To drive mass adoption you would have to have significant customer throughput which Apple simply didn't have at the time.
Welll it just shows that you people(people against microsoft) are brainless,,,you people are comparing all the stuff shown in the clip above with iphone or ipod.
Wait! Is that AnyThing, AnyTime, AnyWhere?
If not, I will have to curb my enthusiasm.
The fact is tthat for the Internet to realize it's future as the source utility of AnyThing AnyTime AnyWhere, the device, the methodology for delivery of AAA-all these goodies -MUST be an AI driven, wireless, unique identifier that automatically places it's user/owner at the fulcrum of controlling multiple tasks, simultaneously, in any enironment.
Our society will be flooded with display devices of all types, but which are controlled by the usr/owner and his/her AI device.
microsoft has been throwing the idea of the "future office" for years and every year its met with even less enthusiasm than the year before.. the truth is it will never come to fruition when you juxtapose it with the present products they're coming out with now.. not to sound like a "hater" but nothing they've come out with to date has led me to believe otherwise.. almost every microsoft product past and present has had a counterpart: xbox/playstation, zune/ipod, silverlight/flash, windows/linux/mac os, metro/PDF, me and IE/netscape navigator and the sad thing is they've never been first to market in any of these categories..
so how could one come to the conclusion they'll champion this kind future for us all? the mere thought of believing this is ludicrous and laughable.
and so the vaporware continues...
- by arj8138 March 1, 2009 8:46 PM PST
- GREAT VID MICROSOFT - now make some of the ISH and well start to respect your innovativeness again.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
Showing 1 of 2 pages (50 Comments)