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Look What's Cooking At Microsoft Labs
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Dec 02, 2008 11:17 AM
from the smart-people-cool-toys dept.
from the smart-people-cool-toys dept.
stinkymountain writes "Writer John Brandon spent two days at Microsoft Research Labs in Redmond and got an inside look at some pretty
interesting projects under development, including a robotic receptionist, a new type of touch screen for people with fat fingers, and an electronic table that allows multiple people to collaborate in real time. Brandon also talks about some of these research projects on this NPR podcast."
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Eagle 1 (Score:5, Interesting)
Eagle 1 looks quite awesome, think how great that would be for disaster control if you could see a real-time map of where the flood waters are rising fastest, where the fires are spreading from, or whatever the current disaster of the day might be. Making it interactive/collaborative sounds great, so you could draw little plans of attack and have them distributed to everyone in your organization.
I've never been a real Microsoft groupie but this sounds very civic-minded, innovative, and useful.
In other news, I would love to have a similar product for city-wide games of paintball or capture the flag.
Re:Eagle 1 (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
No need to apologize (Score:2, Insightful)
- A windows user and satisfied with it
- A .net developer who think .net is a great platform
- An user who thinks that the ribbon are is a great innov
Re:No need to apologize (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
History (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:History (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:History (Score:4, Interesting)
But they didn't. Biggest reason? They didn't like that everyone that wanted to develop for it used Macs. There was an enormous Ballmer shaped problem with porting the SDK to Mac OS. So instead of just not doing that and releasing it anyhow, they canned the entire idea, amputating half the department that came up with it.
And that's microsoft.
Parent
Re:History (Score:5, Informative)
So Multitouch screen software, ditto, ditto, ditto, VS upgrade, Novelty receptionist blah blah blah
Where is the innovation? All these are projects that are minor variants of things we have seen before? and other companies are doing already .... ?
Parent
Single page edition (Score:4, Informative)
for those that don't want to click every 4 sentences. [networkworld.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Summary -- (Score:5, Informative)
electronic table (Score:3, Funny)
Robotic Receptionist? Old News... (Score:5, Interesting)
At the Cisco campus that I recently visited in SanJose, if you visit one of the less visited buildings (like one occupied by Engineers as opposed to the Briefing Center building), instead of a receptionist sitting at the desk, at the desk is a box the size of a microwave and a 40in HDTV on the wall. You push a button on the 'box' and it calls a centralized receptionist, who then appears on the TV (this might be the same tech as their Telepresence product). Anyhow, if you need a guest badge, she records your information and a guest badge is dispensed from the box on the desk.
I'm assuming that the remote receptionist can do all the other tasks as well (calling someone down etc..)
Re: (Score:2)
That's more of a remote-control reception desk, not a robotic receptionist. Close, though.
Re:Robotic Receptionist? Old News... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I found something with a G on it, but it's a black wire hooked up to the power unit.
uh oh (Score:5, Funny)
If they get a patent on using a touchscreen with fat, cheetos-covered fingers, linux is doomed!
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If they get a patent on using a touchscreen with fat, cheetos-covered fingers, linux is doomed!
It will be the year of Windows desktop!
Ops, there's something wrong here.
Re:uh oh (Score:4, Interesting)
Not something wrong, but it makes you wonder...
Why now do we see Microsoft trying harder than before?
Slower sales? Pitching the company instead of a product? Trying to recover from the slump in stock sales? Trying to recover from years of a bad image before it hits them hard?
Why does Microsoft view the brand as declining value?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why now do we see Microsoft trying harder than before?
Actually, they have been doing this sort of stuff since 1991. A lot of reseach goes on inside the walls of Microsoft, including stuff that would obviously never have any commercial prospects.
Back in the 90s, I remember being amazed at the large number Microsoft employees delivering papers at computer science conferences. I find it interesting that Microsoft has always had a large presence at SIGGRAPH, and yet Microsoft Paint continues to suck.
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So in the future Linux's children will use the Microsoft "Baron Harkonnen" Surface... interesting.
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...and they will walk in the tips of their toes, supported by anti-grav generators hidden in the folds of fat of their bellies, buttocks and thighs
Supersize me 2, anyone?
Re:uh oh (Score:4, Insightful)
I am sure there are others besides the self-checkout aisle of your local Wal-Mart.
Parent
Re:uh oh (Score:4, Funny)
I once worked where we had to wear environmental hazard suits,
Took a job cleaning a White Castle bathroom, didja ?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Military.
Try working a touchscreen while wearing arctic gloves. When I was working on a touchscreen based product for the Army, I made sure to bring my ski gloves in as a "unit test". Not as fat as arctic gloves, but still a reasonable test.
gentlemen (Score:3, Funny)
Re:gentlemen (Score:4, Funny)
*shrug* I got nothing.
Parent
Killer bride (Score:4, Funny)
The robotic receptionist - which will be used at Microsoft headquarters, likely next year - will help Microsoft visitors find shuttles to get around campus. The receptionist can even identify visitors based on what they are wearing and provide information on shuttle routes using GPS tracking data.
Robotic voice:
- You're wearing a ...yellow ... Linux ... T-shirt. You have a ... Hattori Hanzo ... sword. You must be here to... kill... Bill. Please take the next shuttle on your right.
With Voice Recognition? (Score:5, Funny)
You:
-Im here to visit my dear mom who works here
Robotic voice: ... dear aunt ... lets set ... so double ... the killer ... delete ... select all
-You are here to
Parent
An Opportunity for More Bload (Score:3, Funny)
IMHO - and I'm no longer in an MS shop - is that OSLO and VS2010 both add up to HuYOOGE code bloat if prior MS tools are any indication. What MS needs to do, since they're obviously trying to automagic stuff more and more, is to sort out including their whole freaking library in the binaries by default.
Re:An Opportunity for More Bload - oops (Score:2)
s/Bload/Bloat... damnit shoulda previewed!
Interesting stuff (Score:4, Funny)
I especially enjoyed the video of Dr. Bunson Honeydew's research. I felt a bit sorry for his research assistant, though - that poor guy gets all the scut jobs.
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gaaah! (Score:2)
well I guess its fair that if they want to pay for developing nice toys then they should get some payback, though I really wonder how much you can patent on touch sensitive surfaces? I would imagine you could be limited to copyright on your interface, right / wrong?
I was amused to see a touch sensitive interface in the new James Bond film. I was looking for a logo to see if they were advertising anybody on that
"Office Space" cure for fat fingers... (Score:4, Funny)
It's called the "Jump-To-Conclusion Mat".
a robosecretary can com in handy (Score:4, Funny)
http://www.goats.com/archive/081127.html [goats.com]
Blue Mouse (Score:2)
Sure this new blue mouse will work on a variety of surfaces, but will it work on my blue mousepad?
Summary (Score:5, Funny)
Looks like something that we see in spy movies where a Command Center has access to all the topographical maps and information that it needs in an instant but for disaster recovery and planning. Looks promising. Like all collaborative efforts, success will depend on how well the individual components work well together (databases, etc). Big ass collaboration
Kiosk technology. Not really intended for home users. At $12,500 each (with discounts), I see this more as a novelty more than practical. Big ass table
I'm not exactly sure what this is. It appears to be the software that Surface runs so I don't think it counts as a separate project. Software for big ass table.
An interactive semi-transparent monitor ala Minority Report. The main difference was the interaction in Minority report was with holograms and this is a hard surface. Big ass touchscreen wall monitor.
News aggregator that is focused more on relationships and content than search terms. Might be useful for data mining. Big ass aggregator
Extends touch surfaces on mobile by allowing users to reach behind the screen so that your fat fingers don't block what you are trying to select. This however doesn't solve the compromise of portability of mobile devices with the need for larger screens. Touch surface for your big ass fingers.
Extends software development from sharing code to data models as well. Big ass application development modeling
Well this uses OSLO and is the next version of Visual Studio so putting it into its own project is a bit of a stretch. Big ass IDE.
New MS mice will allow to be used on rougher surfaces like tile and wood than before by increasing the sampling rate of the laser among other advances . New laser mice with big ass oversampling
I think this is software but a virtual receptionist that can interact with and track visitors. Big ass big brother.
Did I miss any big asses?
Re:Summary (Score:4, Informative)
Read TFA. No, you didn't miss any of them. Thanks for the summary.
While I'm generally a fan of Microsoft products (yes, boo hiss) these are all pretty lame. Four of them are touchscreens or variants thereof.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Code name: Pictionaire
I'm not exactly sure what this is.
This is a gaming environment with a stylus interface. The way it works is the user generates input by creating a Drawing®. The computer gets a set amount of time to correctly interpret the Drawing®. If it does so, it wins! If not, another process gets a turn.
Re: (Score:2)
I think I've seen prior art: Max Headroom
Re: (Score:2)
Did I miss any big asses?
No, Mixalot, I think you covered just about all of them.
Photosynth rocks!!!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Photosynth is amazing!!!
I had some old photos taken of a climbing wall with my kids on different places at different times and from different angles. I uploaded all the photos and BAM!! It stitched them all together and gave us a realtime multi-perspective look at it. Whatever gripes you have about MS, give them credit when they are working on something that it really cool!!!
Receptionist? (Score:3, Funny)
For proprietary, trade-secret reasons, MS needed to develop a workforce that doesn't need chairs. Microsoft spokeswoman C. DeFenestra refused comment.
Multiple sources? (Score:2)
Nobody thought of MS-SQL I guess. Or maybe they did.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Man: "Hello, I have an appointment with Mr Ballmer"
Receptionbot: "Dear Aunt, Kill Delete Select All... must kill, must kill, must kill..."
Re: (Score:2)
A man walks up to the reception desk at Microsoft.
Man: "Hello, I have an appointment with Mr Ballmer"
MissClippy: "Hi, It looks like you want meet with Mr Ballmer... I can help you with that..."
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah, more than half were touch screen stuff of various flavors. I guess everyone at MS bought an iphone touch and is totally in love with it.
Sidenote, the best codename was the project to develop a robotic receptionist, "Codename: Robotic Receptionist." I really wish more codenames were more accurate like that.
Operation: invade Iraq and replace Saddam's government with a puppet government in 2 weeks. That is less pompus than "Operation: Enduring freedom" or whatever was.