Microsoft Goes Back to the Future (VIDEO)
Every now and again Microsoft pulls product plans, R&D Division projects and a little creativity together to come up with a video showing what technology could allow in the near future.
A few years ago, a Microsoft video popped up at trade shows and on YouTube showing ubiquitous surface computing on walls, floors and windows, accompanied by credit card-sized handheld devices.
Microsoft went back to the future again this week with a new concept video.
Kurt DelBene, president of the Microsoft Office Division, explained the rationale for the videos in a blog post today:
We create these videos to help tell the story we see unfolding in technology, and how it will impact our lives in the future.
All of the ideas in the video are based on real technology. Some of the capabilities, such as speech recognition, real time collaboration and data visualization already exist today. Others are not yet available in specific products, but represent active research and development happening at Microsoft and other companies.
This video wasn't as stunning to me as the one from 2009. I think it's partly because the industry has come so far in the interim with tablets, smartphones, motion sensors and voice recognition, and partly because this video seems to be projecting only a few years into the future rather than a decade.
Still, it's well worth a six-minute, 17-second investment of time:
Posted by Scott Bekker on October 27, 2011 at 11:58 AM