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New video : Inside Microsoft's house of the future

New video from the BBC with a tour in Microsoft’s house of the future:

Microsoft invited BBC News to take a first look at its revamped Space of the Future at its headquarters in Redmond, Washington. The facility is used to portray what the firm thinks life might be like five to 10 years in the future

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Nieuwe Microsoft ‘Future Vision’ Video: Live, Work, Play

Een goede visie op de toekomst is essentieel voor een bedrijf dat technologie ontwikkeld. Een van de dingen die ik erg goed vind aan Microsoft is dat ze elke keer weer met zeer inspirerende video's komen die ons een zeer realistische blik in de toekomst gunnen.

Deze toekomst visie is niet 100% fictie. Veel van de technologieën die je in de video ziet staan ook opgesteld in het het Envisoning Center op het Microsoft hoofdkantoor.

Gisteren kondigde Steve Clayton van Microsoft de opening aan van het nieuwe Envisioning Center op zijn blog :

Back in the early days of Microsoft, our mission was to put a PC on every desk and in every home — an ambitious goal for the time. Behind that was the conviction that computer technology had the innate capacity to enrich peoples’ lives. The trick was applying it in a way that made sense, solved a problem, or generally made life better.

When dramatic technology changes are on the horizon, just describing a possible future isn’t enough – sometimes you have to show it and let people experience it themselves. Over the years, Microsoft has created immersive showcases that show how future technologies could shape our world – first through the Microsoft Home, which opened its doors in 1994, and later through facilities like the Envisioning Lab, which explored possibilities for the workplace of the future.

This work continues at our new Envisioning Center, which is all about imagining how technology could be used to make life easier and more enjoyable, sometimes in small ways and sometimes in revolutionary ones. The Envisioning Center is located here on our Redmond campus and it's been rebuilt from the ground up to incorporate our newest ideas and latest technologies. Today we announced its opening.

Bron: Next at Microsoft

TedTalk: Kevin Slavin: How algorithms shape our world

Kevin Slavin argues that we're living in a world designed for -- and increasingly controlled by -- algorithms. In this riveting talk from TEDGlobal, he shows how these complex computer programs determine: espionage tactics, stock prices, movie scripts, and architecture. And he warns that we are writing code we can't understand, with implications we can't control.

 

Source: TED.com

Microsoft Future Vision Videos all in 1 list

I use the Microsoft Future Vision videos quite a lot in presentations and over the years Microsoft has produced a number of them. They are always very well received as they paint not only a futuristic, but in many cases also a realistic picture of how we work and play in the future. I can’t wait

A large number of Future Vision (and related) videos are now on Youtube so I put them in a list for you :

Het huis van de toekomst : The Microsoft Home

Nee niet zoals de Chriet Titulaar versie destijds bij het Autotron, maar een duidelijke visie op hoe technologie in de (nabije) toekomst ingezet kan worden in en rond het huis.

Deze video is onderdeel van een serie rondleidingen op de Microsoft campus in Redmond :

 

Steve Clayton and Flora Goldthwaite give us an exclusive tour of The Microsoft Home.

The Microsoft Home, located on the Redmond campus in the Executive Briefing Center, is an envisioning of the family home in the very near future where connected experiences and devices take their next logical steps and beyond.

First opened in 1994, The Microsoft Home is maintained by a group of researchers under Microsoft's Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Craig Mundie, and is updated regularly.

Unfortunately The Microsoft Home is not open to the public but Channel 9 was given special permission to film a sneak-peak tour for this episode of Microsoft Campus Tours.

Bron : http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/CampusTours/Microsoft-Campus-Tours-The-Microsoft-Home

Beyond Office 2010 - The Future of Productivity

Office 2010 is here. The most complete but also the most evolved version of the Office productivity suite. For many years the Office suite is no longer just about personal productity; it is about managing information in the broadest context posiible : interaction between individuals, teams and organisations, from an ad-hoc, project or any kind of social context.

Microsoft’s vision goes far beyond Office 2010 and for those who have not seen this vision yet, take a look at this video :

Now there's also a whitepaper available which puts a number of innovations / visions shown in the video into perspective :

… This paper illustrates how productivity software has evolved to make your work life easier and more productive, and explores some areas where Microsoft is using new technologies and approaches to drive even greater improvements in productivity and efficiency throughout your organization. …

Download Whitepaper : Beyond Office 2010 - The Future of Productivity
Wed, 28 Apr 2010 17:27:29 GMT

Total Recall Is Coming

I just ordered Jim Gemmel’s and Gordon Bell’s book Total Recall.

I had heard a lot about this project over the last few years and after reading the article below became very curious about the details. The article shows where this can lead …

For the last 10 years, Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell of Microsoft Research have been scanning and digitising their entire lives: documents, phone calls, files, chat sessions, email, the web pages they read, the TV and radio shows they watched and listened to, where they want, what applications they had open…

Over the next 10 years, you’re going to do the same, Gemmell told the Storage Visions conference at CES 2010.

“What if you could remember literally everything you’ve ever read, everything you’ve ever seen, everything you’ve ever heard – and things that are not usually in human memory like what’s the temperature of the room, what’s the humidity. We’re entering a world where increasingly, if something can be instrumented it will be; there are sensors everywhere. We’re entering a world of total recall.”

“You will record way more of your life than in past history,” Gemmell says, because of three trends. “We’re already wandering around with digital cameras, phones with cameras that record audio and some of them know your location… as time goes by we get the sensed world.

“Storage is becoming so cheap and abundant that it blows our minds. And there’s the software; we have the technology to do something with all those bits. We have the technology to search, to analyse, to visualise the information.” …

Continue at Source : Total Recall Is Coming

Microsoft & Innovation - WorldWide Telescope And Photosynth In Time’s 50 Best Websites List For 2009

Some people think Microsoft and Innovation are two words that don’t go well together .. well it turns out they do. Two solution came from Microsoft Research and are now 2 very well received solutions making Time’s 50 Best Website list :

WorldWide Telescope and Photosynth, have been named to Time's 50 Best Websites list for 2009.

[click on the image to go to the page]

Very nice considering these sites are still fairly new, Photosynth just turned one and the Worldwide Telescope web client has only been available since March 2009! WWT itself went public in May 2008. Both technologies came out of Microsoft Research. …

 

Source: WorldWide Telescope And Photosynth In Time’s 50 Best Websites List For 2009

Microsoft Home of the Future

The BBC has a aired a short impression of the Microsoft Home of the future which is located at the campus in Redmond. I’ve been there myself a couple of times and its very cool.

Kudo’s Marc Valk

A wearable Surface Computer … Wow

TED is a super resource to hear, see and experience the vision of tomorrow.

Check out this TED Talk : Pattie Maes & Pranav Mistry: Unveiling the "Sixth Sense," game-changing wearable tech

The technology is just commodity stuff and this could be build at the price of a normal smartphone.You can do stuff like simply project a dialpad on your hand and start dialling a phone number .. awesome !

This puts mobile computing in a totally new perspective …

 

InfoWorld: Microsoft doet onderzoek: 10 projecten

Mooi overzicht van 10 innovatieve Microsoft project. Een aantal daarvan, waaronder Surface zijn al realiteit in de zin dat het een commercieel produkt is geworden …

Kijk hier welke innoverende technologische ontwikkelingen afkomstig zijn van de reus uit Redmond. We laten in deze fotoserie een tiental nieuwe projecten van Microsoft voorbij komen.

Bron: Microsoft doet onderzoek: 10 projecten

Microsoft AutoCollage trial version available

Few weeks ago I posted about a very cool new Microsoft program to create Photo Collages

You can download it from research.microsoft.com/downloads and trial it 30 days free. If you like it, you can buy it online from Windows Marketplace or the Microsoft online store in the locales it’s available (US, UK, DE for now). The AutoCollage application is based on great research out of MSR Cambridge (and using research from other MSR labs), and marks the first incubation released directly to consumers from Cambridge Incubation.

You can visit the AutoCollage webpage at http://research.microsoft.com/AutoCollage, and check out the linked trial download, press release, and read up on the research if you’re interested.

P.S. so Willem, here it is :-)

Microsoft AutoCollage 2008

My colleague Michael showed me a very cool application yesterday : AutoCollage 2008 :

Photo collages celebrate important events and themes in our lives. Pick a folder, press a button, and in a few minutes AutoCollage presents you with a unique memento to print or email to your family and friends

Very cool and useful. I keep you posted on its possible release date …

News ways to use "ink" on your PC: InkSeine

Ken Hinkley of Microsoft Research is working on new and improved ways to use "ink".

 

 
Video: InkSeine from Microsoft Research - The Official Video

The prototype application is availanble now for download :  

... Ken Hinckley always thought that searching for information on his computer was like going on a fishing expedition. Every so often, he’d even catch whatever it was he wanted.

Hinckley, a senior researcher in the Adaptive Systems and Interaction group at Microsoft Research Redmond, has been netting better results than usual lately. And now he’s angling to share the secret to his success with Tablet PC users everywhere.

An example of an InkSeine note with links, searches, and screen clippings.

That secret is InkSeine, an innovative new inking tool that Hinckley and his team began developing in 2006. InkSeine is designed to help users get the most out of a Tablet PC by unifying ink, search, and gather functions into a fluid workflow uniquely suited to pen interaction. The ink component enables users to capture freeform thoughts and ideas in handwriting on a page; the integrated search functionality gives users quick access to supporting materials and documents with a few simple pen gestures; and the gather element lets users integrate the search results back into their notes—all without breaking the creative flow. As for the name, Hinckley explains: To “seine” is to fish with a net; to fish for results from your ink notes, use InkSeine.

Effective Feb. 15, Microsoft Research is making a prototype of the InkSeine application available as a download. Hinckley, whose group is charged with exploring interface form factors beyond the traditional mouse and keyboard, hopes Tablet PC users will take the bait. ...

Source: Microsoft Research

Video: Microsoft research projects help simplify your life

Some very cool Microsoft Research projects. Organise your music, filter blogposts, improved translations, you name it ...

Several new projects and ideas emerged from Microsoft's TechFest 2008 to help streamline people's media intake. CNET News.com's Kara Tsuboi has some of the highlights from the event, including a political blog aggregator and an application that can search your music library.

Source CNetnews.com

Microsoft SearchTogether : Social / Collaborative Search

Cool new development from Microsoft Research : MicrosoftTogether.

... Today, Web search is a solitary experience. Web browsers and search engine sites are typically designed to support a single user, working alone. However, collaboration on information-seeking tasks is actually quite commonplace! For example, students work together to complete homework assignments, friends seek information about entertainment opportunities, family members jointly plan vacation travel, and colleagues jointly conduct research for their projects. My research on collaborative search is aimed at facilitating small-group collaboration on search tasks; this webpage contains links to my papers and videos on collaborative search. ...

 

Institute for interactive research : don't click

It's very hard not to use your mouse at first, but this site really shows it can be done and after 30 seconds or so your used to it .. almost ...

dontclick.it

Microsoft Center for Information Work - Future Desktop

Quite a cool demo of a concept of the future desktop ...

Video: Microsoft IW - Future Desktop

Microsoft Previews Surreal Future

Why wasn't I born a wizz kid ? Working at Microsoft Research on any Research department in a successful technolgy organsiation sure looks like a very nice place to work .... and play :-D

Plunk your digital camera down on a specially equipped table and all of the images stored within the camera are projected onto the surface. Get help from a remote colleague who projects a virtual image of her hands to point out corrections in a document. Look up what you did last week on your LifeBrowser. It may all sound futuristic, but Microsoft Research said it's running all these applications for real.

Link to Microsoft Previews Surreal Future

Scoble: Microsoft Researches Better Than Google

Sure you'd think Robert Scoble is biased because Microsoft is his former employer ... nevertheless some cool insights in MS Research's activities. During a recent training week back in February we've had a keynote of about an hour from MS Research with also extremely cool demo's ... sometimes I wish I was a genius :-)

... Kevin is the guy responsible for moving technology from Research into the product teams, so he seems to know everyone working on Research and what’s cool about it. This is the first tape. It’s about an hour long, but you’ll meet some really great technologists who are doing some eye popping research. If you can’t handle the long version (a second one will come up in a few days) we’ve picked a few of the cooler parts and will put those out shortly.

What will you see?

1. 2:11: VIBE group shows off synchronizing via mobile phone research
2. 10:09: Andy Wilson shows off a cool set of apps that use video cameras in a new way (don’t miss this, it rocks!)
3. 19:50: Daniel Robbins shows off a new “tap UI” for phones.
4. 23:35: Matt Uyttendaele shows off HUGE (4 gigapixel or so) photos with a killer “tiling” system that displays them wicked fast.
5. 29:52: Linking the real world to the Web with pictures (killer camera phone research).
6. 34:04: Speech recognition for podcasts.
7. 36:50: Frank Seide shows video exploration and discovery for Media Center PCs.
8. 45:31: Richard Harper demonstrates a bunch of hardware concepts and trials for home users.
9. 52:00: Vibhore Goyal shows using SMS to blogging and research in India.
10. 54:25: Rajesh Veeraraghavan is doing research with farmers in India to find better education systems for them.

If you only want to watch one thing, don’t miss Andy Wilson. His stuff is so freaking cool. His demos are in this short video. ...

Source: Webpronews.com

Mobile Platform Devices Become Data Collectors

Cool stuff by MS Research. Last week I saw some very nice presentations by our head of research. These people do awesome stuff :-)

Mobile sensor-driven applications moved a step closer to reality in late December, when Microsoft announced the availability of so-called “research prototype” technology for the Windows Mobile platform. The AURA (Advanced User Research Annotation) System is a dispatch loop manager for mobile devices that can work with a variety of sensors to collect data.

Link to Mobile Platform Devices Become Data Collectors

Photosynth – Something Microsoft is cooking in Microsoft Live Labs

Photosynth is a collaboration between Microsoft and the University of Washington based on the groundbreaking research of Noah Snavely (UW), Steve Seitz (UW), and Richard Szeliski (Microsoft Research).

Photosynth takes a large collection of photos of a place or object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed 3-Dimensional space. With Photosynth you can:

• walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle;
• seamlessly zoom in or out of a photograph even if it's gigapixels in size;
• see where pictures were taken in relation to one another;
• find similar photos to the one you're currently viewing;
• explore a custom tour or see where you've been; or
• send a collection to a friend.

For futher information and to view a demonstration video visit the Photosynth web site.

I have seen Photosynth in action at our annual gathering last month. This is beyond cool (subzero as the guys from topgear say). Have a look at the site and the video on there … Imagine this becoming a Windows Live service …

Microsoft wil de wereld 'real-time' in kaart brengen

Erg handig voor files, snelheidscontroles, beschikbare parkeerplaatsen, enz ...

Onderzoekers bij Microsoft werken aan een nieuwe technologie waarmee gebruikers via het internet routekaarten kunnen raadplegen die tevens actuele informatie geven over bijvoorbeeld benzineprijzen, verkeersdrukte en wachttijden in restaurants.

[Via Personal Computer Magazine RSS]

Microsoft Research Projects Range from Serious to a Starbucks Finder

I like the Starbucksfinder :-) The only issue is there is only a handful in The Netherlands :-( (starBucks' I mean)

Microsoft researchers including Andy Wilson and Larry Zitnick demonstrate their latest research innovations during Microsoft Research's annual TechFest event. Wilson demonstrated his EigenMirror project, a conceptual art piece that analyzes an image and then displays similarly dressed or appearing people. Zitnick showcased his Recognizing Images project, which automatically can query the Internet through visual recognition for results of an object a user has digitally photographed.

[Via Microsoft Research News and Headlines]

Stepping Through Your Inbox: One of Many Innovations in the Spotlight at Microsoft Research TechFest

"reading" email with your feet :-) ?

Annual showcase of emerging technologies includes a prototype that creates a more dynamic and compelling way to interact with a computer using foot controls.

[Via Microsoft Research News and Headlines]

Rick Rashid: Microsoft's Right Brain

[Via Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check] has a nice short clipping on MS Research. Unfortunatly Peter quotes a lot of articles that require subscriptions, so you have to do ot with this, except opcourse if you are one of the few lucky people that have a subscription ;-)

Rick Rashid: Microsoft's Right Brain: "Responding to critics who carp that Microsoft just copies others' best work, Rashid can reel off dozens of strides his team has made -- like the grammar checker in Microsoft Office, and ClearType, a display technology that produces crisper text resolution in Windows XP. Researchers also came up with spam filters that block unwanted e-mails in MSN Hotmail, a free feature that stops 3.2 billion messages a day. The steady anti-Microsoft harping is 'one of those things where people don't think it through,' Rashid says."

IBM Voice enabled web surfing demo

IBM Eye has a nice post about IBM Research demo-ing a mobile voice recognition solution ...on Windows Mobile

IBM's Igor Jablokov does an interview and demo for ABC News (US) showing a X+V (XHTML plus Voice) enabled mobile device surfing the web for information using voice control.

Demo: Talk to Type

(via the spkydog koop)

More info on X+V on developerWorks: X+V is a markup language, not a Roman math expression

Technorati Tags: ibm mobile device voice control x+v
[Via IBM Eye]

ConferenceXP Proves Its Mettle

ConferenceXP, a shared-source resource platform from Microsoft Research that enables distance learning and collaboration, has gained significant momentum recently on a variety of fronts.

[Via Microsoft Research News and Headlines]

Microsoft Research Hires UI Visionary

Microsoft announced Monday that it has snagged a leading user interface visionary to work in the company's research division.

[Via Redmond | News]

'Interruption Science': Costly Distractions at Work

Technology forces us to juggle competing demands on our attention over the course of our workdays. Alex Chadwick speaks with New York Times Magazine contributor Clive Thompson about "interruption science," the study of the effect of disruptions on job performance.

[Via Microsoft Research News and Headlines]

Microsoft Research ConferenceXP Project

ConferenceXP is an initiative of Microsoft Research. Were exploring how to make wireless classrooms, collaboration, and distance learning a compelling, rich experience by assuming the availability of emerging and enabling technologies, such as high-bandwidth networks, wireless devices, Tablet PCs, and the advanced features in Microsoft Windows XP.

The ConferenceXP research platform enables researchers and developers to create distributed applications that take advantage of ConferenceXP technology as well as Tablet PCs and wireless networks. It also enables them to develop the collaborative tools and applications they need without having to build them from the ground up. By partnering with research organizations and universities, the ConferenceXP project combines the academic communitys expertise in the learning sciences with Microsofts expertise in technology.
Explore this Web site to learn more about ConferenceXP and join the community of ConferenceXP developers and researchers.

Check out the Website : Microsoft Research ConferenceXP Project