“From Microsoft Surface to next-generation social networking, here’s a quick rundown of about 35 Microsoft Research projects from around the world that were showcased this past week at TechFest 2009 in Redmond. Microsoft Research’s TechFest, not to be confused with the yearly TechFest event that occurs in India, is an annual showcase of the various technologies that the company’s researchers have been working on. The 2009 event that took place last week (February 24-26) featured a few prototypes that we’ve already seen before, like WorldWide Telescope and Microsoft Songsmith, but there were also many that have only started to emerge out of Microsoft’s research labs around the world, including those in China, India, the UK, and the US.”
Pretty slick video, but slick videos are a dime a dozen. But when the demo hits the world, the practicality of the real world hits hard. The video only works if: you assume no security is necessary, no privacy is necessary, all networks speak the same protocol, all computer spaces are shared in common or micropayments are automatic, there’s a huge buy-in by all involved, the technologies involved to place computers everywhere are cheap and don’t conflict with societal goals such as environmentalism. Finally, people must want to work that way. The key reason the paperless office failed is because people like paper. So if you give people an easy way to print, they will, and use paper in preference to the computer screen for long stretches.
The biggest transformative technologies are not slick, they’re just well thought out. Look at the dot-com winners. What did they have that was revolutionary? Google had a well designed search and supporting services. Not slick, but it changed the world. Ditto the iPod. There’s nothing in the iPod that didn’t exist in the iRiver except the design.
I have no idea how that comment came from that video. It is basically twentieth of a second shots of various MSR projects, where does security, privacy, network interoperability, and green computing come in? These are a bunch of clips of research projects shown without detail or context. did you even watch the video?
And WTF, gmail isn’t slick? the ipod isnt slick?