Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates demonstrated today technologies for transcribing spoken Chinese, making handheld computers aware of when they’re being touched and moved, and adding emotion to computer slide shows. At an event recognizing the 10th anniversary of Microsoft Research, Gates indulged his fondness for technology, raising hopes for a world where computers will become more useful. At the event, among the things it was showed was a handheld computer that understands which way is up and where it’s being touched, technology that lets it reorient the display according to how it’s held or understand when a person is holding it like a cell phone to give dictation. The “Mulan” software project for reading Chinese writing out loud or transcribing speech into characters. With about 60,000 characters in Chinese, it’s difficult to use keyboards. Automated bug detection that helped make Windows 2000 less crash-prone is being used in all other Microsoft product lines. Video compression technology that’s less error-prone than the prevailing MPEG4 standard. Software that’s designed not to sap people’s emotion when creating narrated slide shows so sharing photos online is more like the storytelling that accompanies the viewing of traditional photo albums. Software that can reconstruct three-dimensional images from a few still photos.
Microsoft Showcases New Tech at Research’s 10th Anniversary
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Eugenia Loli
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60,000 characters? Where does THAT figure come from? The old Imperial K’ang Hsi dictionary had about 14,000 characters and the best modern dictonary I’ve seen has only about 7,000.
Sorry, my mistake, the K’ang-Hsi dictionary has about 46,000 characters (I’ve been out of class TOO long). The problem is that many of these characters are simply stroke variations of various characters (much like the spelling difference between what they speak in the UK and proper American English: tyre-tire, centre-center, arse-ass).
However, the standard dictionaries used by university students in either Taiwan or Communist China have only about 4,000 characters. Considering the fact that a chinese university graduate is able to read, write and pronounce *correctly* only about 1,000 characters, 60,000 seems to be a case of over-kill.
Americans speak American. The English speak English, and they spell it correctly. BTW, tire means to get fatigued, and ass is a cross between a donkey and horse.
I thought they all talked like the girl in “My Fair Lady”: “‘ere ‘ere ‘nogh o’that ya silly bugger!”. Cockney, Liverpuddian,etc.
Thanks Microsoft !
Thanks Bill All-Mighty!
How these poor Chinese were working on computers before ?
Keyboards were so long that had to use bicycle to travel from one end to another. Did you notice how many bikes in Peking ? Now you know why.
Too bad China already commited to Linux.
What about poor Japanese ? While glyphs are the same the pronounciation is different. Oh, well, can’t save all the world in one scoop – Japan gotta wait
a bit . At least Japanese have good cheap cars to drive around their keyboards.
Did they mentioned “new audio compression format less error-prone than mp3” ?
“(H)opes for a world where computers will become more
useful will be realize once Microsoft products are removed from any computer.
Use a real OS: GNU/LInux.
I have a question.
Microsfot has spent tons of money and ten years working away in their secret labs, and they have produced what?
Where is the “innovation” they constantly spout off about?
Could someone list off all of their big inventions?
I am thinking along the lines of stuff Bell labs used to crank out. Bell labs gave us transistors,the lasar, Unix, the C programming language.
The dancing paper clip, and MS bob don’t count.
There has to be something??!!?!?
They have produced a one first: a company that can make billions of $$$ using only 3 departments: Acquisition, Marketing, and Legal.
“Microsoft — We’re the Leader. Wait for Us.”
The things I can give any MS research for is the MS Natural Pro keyboard and the development of the Mouse from a stupid 1 button thing apple gave us to a multi buttoned ergonomic wheel spining monster we have today (-:
BTW I use the keyboard which I love but I use a Logitech mouse (-:
“Microsoft — We’re the Leader, now what was it Amiga was doing 10 years ago?”
The “Mulan” software project? Hmm… too bad disney can’t sue them, Disney’s trademark doesn’t cover computer software… there was a trademark on the word “Mulan” for computer software, but it’s dead…
Haw haw haw,
Arse/ass, tyre/tire
Hehehe, it can’t get better than this, can it?
Hahahahahaha