Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's Vision Of Future Workplaces
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft unveils their new office of the near future in a swanky center in Redmond. Inside this article you will find clear evidence of institutional navel gazing like never before and a staggering ignorance of current technology (much of this seems retreaded) not to mention actual business needs or wants. Want proof? How about: '"Surround sound is going to be increasingly important in future offices," says group marketing manager Tom Gruver in leading a tour of the new facility.' Right. More chestnuts inside."
I'm sure the security won't be very good.
for those times when you're relieving stress after a meeting (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/26/18352 36&mode=nested&tid=127) by playing counterstrike and need to know whos behind you.
Hot damn
Another first post!!!
I never liked central lized things from one compant I hope choice is never rmoved.. FP
please tell me this office of the future comes complete with soundproof cubicles. Thats what everyone needs to hear their neighbors blasting their Abba CDs.
With the move to central servers and MS moves like Liscensing 6.0 who will need or want Microsoft in five years?
There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
Gates book, 'The Road Ahead' was disconnected from reality as well. MS was late to the Internet, and continues to exhibit a follow-the-leader style of reaction vs. action thinking. They don't get it and they never will.
Has any one read 1984?
I like the monitor they show in the article. We're starting to have more people with multiple monitors at my work, and it does really help for programming tasks.
This one they show is great, because of the shape and not having to have separate monitors. Very nice.
- sigs are for wimps.
a barrel to bend over for the shafting M$ is going to give you.
what the hell is that? First we had .net and all of it's stuff, now we have two things (c# and d#) that aren't even related to each other. One's a programming language, and the other is screen display tech. Innovation my ass, they can't even come up with proper naming conventions. They gonna just use a single letter and the # from now on? Was .NET too confusing or long?
The article mentions few details. Yes, surround sound is a little bit ridiculous. But, the pen copy and paste from computer to computer is interesting. Biometrics for access control? That is already possible with Windows. What else is the big news? Microsoft has some great plans to revolutionize the office? This has been their grand dream since the released their wonderful product "office". Of course, we are all well aware how well that plan worked...
This is a pointless article.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
I would of guessed the opposite from Microsoft.
This is an example of the lame Microsoft bashing that has become commonplace on Slashdot. Why not put a filter in user preferences so that we don't have to read it?
Amazing magic tricks
Any workplace that blindly signs over to .net and other such things for total automation and the like is going to find out very quickly how horrible it is to be under antoher's control.
"Oh no, 3 horny women and only 2 condoms...Thank god I read slashdot"
"The lines between home and office are blurring,"
And that, my dear friends, is what will decide its success. Ever-increasing workloads and unreasonable expectations of "productivity" from cost-cutting employers mean there's a good chance the above statement will come true, even if the rest [of the vision] doesn't.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
the office of the future is going to provide even MORE distractions for the workers to further reduce productivity.
why cant we just force the CLI on office workers?
True capitalism = lots of similar companies = jobs for everyone who wants one.
"At one desk, users can move a wireless mouse's pointer from the screen of one computer to the screen of a laptop, with no wire or wireless connection between the computers themselves. That allows copying or moving material between the computers, a task that would otherwise be more difficult."
Hahahahah! The idea that it would be really hard to copy info between 2 computers unless you can drag from one desktop to another! Even in Windows you can just open 2 explorer windows if you REALLY REALLY HAVE TO use drag 'n' drop to copy files.
Stuff like the quote from the article is like some myopic future gazing from ancient SF, where they "solved" problems of the future using an extended version of the current method- i.e. The way people in the future will save space with books is that they will keep all their books in a warehouse many miles from their house and be able to teleport the volume they require from the warehouse when they want to read it...
graspee
Your choice, Mr. Anderson:
- Receive your message via some old Gleep rattling on about the weather, his latest aches and pains, finally getting to the point 13 minutes into the message..., or
- Skimming the email until you get to the part that matters, reading it quickly and then hitting a ^D to send it to hell.
Well, Mr. Anderson, which is it? Listen to 5 messages an hour (if you're lucky), or processing 30 emails in the same amount of time? Where do you want to go today, Mr. Anderson?My name is Neo!
THUD.
Yeah, right.
Surely there *must* be some more new ideas floating round than that - for instance, what about better tools to manage the flood of email people now receive?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
All the computers delivered to our labs have two speaker setups. It would be nice if some of them had satellite speakers, though. Workstations should be able to use all the DVD audio channels. We look at lots of demos on DVD.
So what if you don't need it to check your email, you don't need your mouse either. (I'm sure lots of hardcore *nix geeks still don't believe in mice.)
1) That wraparound screen actually looks pretty cool and potentially useful. I find myself glancing back and forth slightly across my large screen, so something like this could help with limited screen real estate. Not everyone's comfortable with X-style multiple desktops. My one worry is that this monitor would be MS-only (insert quote about GM requiring GM wheels here...)
2) Surround sound being an important part of an office? If your office is a production studio, maybe - but if your office is a studio, chances are you know more about what you need than a bunch of marketing hacks from MS.
I kind of hope this was a joke that the article didn't quite make clear.
3) The lack of a focus on security - on the one hand, MS might not want to overhype something they've been horribly deficient with in the past. On the other hand, it sounds like even the visitors noticed a lack of focus on secure computing, and I'd be a bit concerned about a company that promotes style over substance as the "office of the near future".
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
"...workers e-mail each other spoken messages, or videos of themselves delivering messages"
Here I am in this next scene, walking to Sue's office delivering her the memo on a Post-It, written in crayon. The Digital "Rights" Management system intergrated at great expense into everyhting from the coffee maker to my car dashboard is fsck'ed up again and the entire office is broken.
I'm sure you'd be knocking the notion of VoIP, Video Phones, Netmeetings, E-Mail if it were noted for the office of 2002... in 1982.
- At one desk, users can move a wireless mouse's pointer from the screen of one computer to the screen of a laptop, with no wire or wireless connection between the computers themselves. That allows copying or moving material between the computers, a task that would otherwise be more difficult.
Does anybody else have difficulties with this particular idea? Since when did the ability to move a mouse pointer mean you could copy and paste?I'd get chills when a guard walked behind my hiding spot. One of my favorite games ever.
//e classic), CounterStrike (I have 3 copys of HL and have never played it!), TennisAddict (PocketPC) best handheld game, Spider Solitare (MS I know bad sooner), Neverwinter (if this were out when I was in college I would have never graduated).
Thief (1 & 2), Ultima III & IV (Apple
"At one desk, users can move a wireless mouse's pointer from the screen of one computer to the screen of a laptop, with no wire or wireless connection between the computers themselves."
I am doing that right now...
win2vnc
AdFuel
"There is an emphasis here on security, but that doesn't mean we can't be visionary," Gruver explains.
If by 'visionary' they mean 3d sound, video emails and hierarchical buddies I'd rather have them concentrate on security.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
At one desk, users can move a wireless mouse's pointer from the screen of one computer to the screen of a laptop, with no wire or wireless connection between the computers themselves. That allows copying or moving material between the computers, a task that would otherwise be more difficult.
Yes, that normally is difficult if there is "no connection between the computers". So is the mouse also a base station for wireless ethernet?!?
Java: the COBOL of the new millenium.
From the article: "The lines between home and office are blurring," he says.
Well then install a dsl and vpn and work in the buff at home. That'll go over will with video email.
When I'm not at work, I don't want to still be at work.
And you know why?
(if you really need the answer to this you need to wait about 10 years)
"Piter, too, is dead."
And any attempt by companies to prove otherwise is going to alienate potential customers.
"At one desk, users can move a wireless mouse's pointer from the screen of one computer to the screen of a laptop, with no wire or wireless connection between the computers themselves. That allows copying or moving material between the computers, a task that would otherwise be more difficult."
Gaaak! How cool is that! There's something that is missing in the opensource community - the "WOW" factor. I mean, there's plenty of stuff that's neat floating around, but it seems like we're always playing catchup to the standards created by superfunded companies. At some point, coming out with a (built-in) whiz-bang thing like this would really help out the cause. Imagine...
"Gosh, you mean that this free software and reasonably priced hardware can make my life immediately easier OUT OF THE BOX!?!? Graaaah! WHY HAVE I WASTED MY LIFE THUS FAR?"
Rapture envelopes the cubicle masses as companies adopt the new computing paradigm, etc...
Crystal Meth: Would you ingest somthing made from a poisonous gas and an explosive metal? You do it every day -- Salt!
Here's ZDNet's article. It has a different picture with it. You can find it here.
Won't it be great to open an email in your office that says,
"HARD TEEN ANAL SEX WITH ANIMALS!
CUM GET YOUR HARD TEEN ANAL SEX WITH ANIMALS!"
Won't spam be fun then.
We'll also travel to this office in personal atomic powered flying cars.
After reading this, I bet that Bill Gates' original plans for his mansion had a "pinball machine room," a secret entrance, and a robot chef that tells jokes while it serves you.
If some jerk rear ends me while reading an Excel spreadsheet e-mailed to his dashboard, I'm going to sue Microsoft.
better is the enemy of good
oh. that'd be everywhere, then...
mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...
So what neat sounds does it make when some script kiddie 0wnz your b0x3n??
"The lines between home and office are blurring," he says.
.. wrong company, but you get my idea).
Does this scare anyone else as much as it does me? Having a life outside of work is something I don't think anyone should be without, and in my opinion is not healthy. When I go home, it is to be with loved ones, and to do things that I need to do for myself. Work has, and can, wait until tomarrow. Why does this asshat think differently (ok
You stick your hand in a box, and it counts your fingers..
*rimshot*
I can understand the advantage of dual displays for graphics tasks but what is the advantage of having dual displays for programming? Can't you just use virtual desktops and have a big monitor? My monitor, the sony in the middle runs at 1600x1200. What would be the advantage of running 2 displays at 800x600 over running one big monitor at 1600x1200?
workers e-mail each other spoken messages, or videos of themselves delivering messages, rather than simply writing e-mails or leaving voice mails.
simplifying:
workers e-mail each other...videos of themselves delivering messages... rather than simply writing e-mails..
What? They email each other videos of themselves delivering messages? Is this some dystopian big brother style post office, where you have to keep your supervisor informed about all your work via email? Or is it instead an ultra paranoid method of document authentication?
We must be told!
PS. Yeah, yeah, I know that they meant saying the message into a webcam or whatever, but the above is how I read it first time...
Here.
The article... well... isn't. It's an ADD. Take a look at every "article" on MSN. Wake up and watch the Matrix, people, MSN is one big banner add. LOOK AT IT! So is this article. One big add. Puppets pushing Media Player 9 and all the other "extra" features in MSN that you ahve to pay for.
Some Linux users start off as respectible members of society. But it doesn't take long for them to devolve into smelly, fat, black t-shirt-wearing hippies who envision themselves as the Crow.
here
/me wonders if http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=microsoft&btnG =Google+Search is the next slashdot (w/o karma)
I'd be a bit concerned about a company that promotes style over substance as the "office of the near future".
Hello.. this is Microsoft. I would be more concerned if they started promoting substance at all. Have you used Windows FisherPrice recently? =)
i picture says a 1000 words, and this article just barely makes 1000.
maybe SHOWING me the office would help?
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
At one desk, users can move a wireless mouse's pointer from the screen of one computer to the screen of a laptop.
Imagine going mad at somebody and throwing your mouse at him. It will take weeks before you have found your cursor back!
Euh... I have a mouse-cursor on the screen but I don't know who it belongs to..."
Please, stop playing around. Get away from that start-menu!
Don't! DON'T. Don't run winipcfg! I will hate you for the rest of your life!
*** irc-user has quit (Ping timeout)
bash$
Did this strike anyone else like the old ads and such of the 50s showing what the future was going to look like? I'm placing bets when it comes to things like wrap around screens and surround sound, it will be about accurate too!
Also, all you who are harping about the lack of security. You should know by now that in 5 years, they will have the 'Most Secure OS'(tm) on the market!
-- Many men would appreciate a woman's mind more if they could fondle it
"One concept not addressed is the bugs, unnecessary or hidden features and overly complicated products Microsoft has already introduced into the market."
Yeah, I tend to call the stuff Microsoft has already introduced into the market bugs too.
Yeah, the big screen looks cool, but considering the number of users I've seen running their 21" monitor at 800x600, or even 640x480, I doubt the expense would be worth it for most users.
Politas
why does this make me think of a giant talking paper clip telling me to "Your productivity has slipped 15%, Manager 2 has been notified, thank you"
:)(smile)
Although I would enjoy it more if it were along the lines of Blade Runner!
But in the desktop of MY future, I will not have a reason to leave my cubicle. (*sick*sadistic*grin)
Truly the most disturbing part of this is the implication that in the office of the future Microsoft will have extended their oh-so-clever-I-want-to-puke C# naming convention to the D# display. After getting a slew of MS products named ActiveSomething, and then suffering through the Product Year scheme started by Windows 95 and subsequently embraced by software companies outside of Redmond and continuing today (Unreal Tournament 2003 anyone?), we can now look forward to seeing such great products as E#, F#, G#....
Future Scenario
John "Office Worker" Doe mistakenly grabs a music WMA file instead of his DOC file and copies it to his laptop for his upcoming presentation.
Alarm bells go off...
Voice from the surround speakers: You have tried to illegally copy a copyrighted work. You are now under arrest. You have a right to remain silent... yadayada
Plausible? Who knows... at least we know what the surround sound speakers are for!
I wonder if it will be paperless...
Ack, who am I kidding, my boss still prints out virus warnings to put them in my in tray.
Over the next 10 years, this fancy new Information Technology is going to be a great separator of good, capable companies (who will prosper in it), and those who just buy it because of Microsoft's cool commercials on page 2 of "Business Week" and on CNN.
:)
Not many people are properly wired for this InfoTech stuff. A _very_ senior guy at the company I work for emailed me last week because I dropped the "Open Directory Project" into a conversation down the pub. The guy in question knows all about Google, yet he still emailed me with the precise words "What was that URL you told me the other day for 'The Open Directory Project'?".
In a way it's all happening now with Intranets, Extranets and CRM etc. Companies that are created by, or led by people that "get IT" - and have the business genes to go with it - are going to have no problem in this exciting new landscape where new "technology" comes along every 24 hours.
I can't wait
What up with all the MS articles lately.
/.?
Did MS buy
Where I used to work some of the more nerdy types devoted their lunch hours to Doom death matches over the network. (For a while I wondered what the "AHHH SHIT!" from a few qubes away was all about). I can just imagine what goes on at M$ during lunch hour (or after hours for that matter). And I can almost see Bill getting a face full of BFG2000.
make sure that one of the computers has a shared folder. Give yourself the necessary privleges to copy a file. Navigate to that folder using network neighborhood. copy the file.
Yeah, that's just what I need on my computer. That way, when I have a bit of an accident in my workshop, and have to put a band-aid on my thumb, I'll be locked out of my computer.
Politas
Well, the article isn't very in depth.
However, some of the described features made me grimace...they are the sort of thing that is almost GUARANTEED to be a security hazard and loaded with bugs.
Video email...sounds good til you realize that means that spammers will be sending 50meg files of porno videos. (porn good...bandwidth wasted because the spammers sent the same video 20 times...bad)
I just flinched when it talked about being able to send spreadsheets to a contact's cell phone or pda. Somehow this doesn't seem like a very safe or reliable method of distributing confidential financial information... (because of the tremendous complexity of the software that would be required to accomplish this means it is likely to have many security bugs)
Surround sound...star wars theme to copy files...lol I bet it even has a subwoofer. Unless you are the only one in the office I don't even need to address the problem here....
The wrap around screen might actually be useful, but it looks like it distorts the image. Pro developers have used multiple monitors for years now.
Finally, the mouse "automagically" moving from screen to screen...sharing network drives is shaky and buggy enough without this extra layer of complexity added in...
2) Surround sound being an important part of an office? If your office is a production studio, maybe - but if your office is a studio, chances are you know more about what you need than a bunch of marketing hacks from MS.
Surround sound makes sense to MSFT employees because most of us [including wet behind the ears college hires like me] have their own office. I love being able to listen to my obnoxious hip hop music without having to worry about an office mate like I did at internships in the past. However I often find myself wishing for speakers better than the stock, cheap PC speakers than came with my Dell. Surround sound would be way fucking cool.
Of course, this all assumes having your own office. Cubicles or other shared spaces may not be as conducive for surround sound music listening as ones own office but I wouldn't just dismiss it out of hand as you have.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this post are mine and do not reflect the opinions, thoughts, strategies or plans of my employer.
I guess ergonomics aren't important. Dig the straight keyboard. I guess in the future medical science will obsolete the need for ergo inputs.
# Erik
Why are designers so ignorant about the actual experience of working?
(And no, you can't have my Aeron.)
1.) E-mail will become voice oriented
2.) Soon, the voice file will not be in a seperate file; one will only have to click on the e-mail to hear it
3.) Microsoft will see that people are tired of sending e-voice#-mail with delays between them, so they create a technology to allow them to connect and talk to each other instantly
4.) Microsoft realizes that it can create a product for e-voice#-mail which is much smaller, so it does
5.) Microsoft discovers a way for e-voice#mail to be exchanged over regular POTS wires
6.) Microsoft releases the their latest innovation...the telephone
The telephone: the next stage of computing
The 'D' probably comes from the shape -- thing of what a desk with such a semi-circle monitor would look like from above. The 'sharp' probably comes as a cross-branding w/ C#.
C# is a hilarious name. "When Windows breaks you'll C# edges."
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
At one desk, users can move a wireless mouse's pointer from the screen of one computer to the screen of a laptop, with no wire or wireless connection between the computers themselves. Now that's amazing. There is no wired OR WIRELESS connection between the computers? By definition, ANY connection would either have wires or it wouldn't, so this means there IS NO connection between the computers. Did M$ suddenly hire David Copperfield as a development engineer?
"The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote" -- Kosh
You shouldn't dismiss something purely because it's from "Micro$haft", kids.
Now if they say that surround sound is going to be "increasingly important in future offices," however...
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
The one thing that is dead on is the importance of more immediately visible screen area! Financial companies have used multimonitor for quite a while, with the need for analysis of a great deal of dynamic data being paramount to their work.
Virtual desktops are of dubious use, and are more a matter of personal habit- the point of more desktop space is greater visibility, and multimonitor delivers this.
Matrox has always been aware of this need, and has served it well for years. Recently, nVidia has started to catch up, with all new Geforce chips being equipped with multimonitor capability- what facilities the actual OEM's card has is another matter, but the chip at least can handle it, encouraging more manufacturers to make multimonitor parts without having to take a risk on buying lots of multimonitor specific GPUs- so this sort of thing is bound to arrive in an office near you.
With CRTs getting cheaper and cheaper, multimonitor is within everyone's reach without breaking the bank. When flat panels come into their own, we'll get even more capability.
The one change I made to my PC setup that made my computer use more productive was to get a larger monitor. The next best thing I did was to add a second one. Online documentation is no longer a joke- it now lives on monitor 2. Now, every workstation I own has at least 2 screens.
If you've never done multimonitor before, go dig out an old PCI card (unless it's a Matrox card, you'll need to set it to init before your AGP card in the bios) and a random spare monitor, set them up on your machine, and try it. Both Windows and Linux support multimonitor very well (I've used the binary nvidia drivers under linux, and have had a great deal of success with dualhead on one card, and the recent win2k drivers have resolved their old problem with single card multimonitor.)
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Ok, yes people can do something like that already.
My question is how are they getting the data between the computers if there is no wire or wireless connection between them? Floppies? What transmision media are they using?
...stamping (with some difficulty) "Ctrl-Alt-Delete"...forever.
Such as the ability to attach hand-drawn sketches or vector diagrams to instant messaging?
Multiple people editing concurrently one multimedia document?
Multiple keyboards for one machine, for extreme programming / pair programming, for example?
Desks that are actually the right height?
Wireless monitors & monitor stations? (let's not get into security with that, though!)
Signed and encrypted documents, changes, and messages? What about that whole DRM thing? Left and right hand at MS marketing not talking? (they are pretty big)
These are things I want and would pay money for.
I think your missing the point. You can teach yourself to read unbelievably faster than someone can talk. Your logic is absolutly ridiculous. How the heck do you know from a wav file, where the crap ends and the point starts? It has nothing to do with it being Microsoft's idea. It's a retarded idea no matter who it came from. Audio tapes were not the end of books. Nor is voice mail EVER going to replace standard written messages. Wouldn't it be wonderful if this message board was all wav files! Yeah okay now be quiet.
Really.. think about it.
Who *wants* to have work follow them everywhere they go? Get up.. there's the boss on the computer waiting for you to get out of bed. Try to escape? Nuh uh.. the toaster has a few voicemails waiting for you before breakfast..
Run out the door to the car.. that's ok.. everything was forwarded to your dashmail while you were unplugging the toaster since you didn't verify it was read before it was unplugged. All this time your cell phone is going off because someone thinks their current thoughts are more important than yours. Meanwhile you're probably being tracked by marketing droids to see if they can sell you a product that will somehow get you out of bed, dressed and to your corporate shackles quicker, after all it's not you that matters.. it's the almighty dollar.. which you are making for someone else and the marketing people want some too. you're just a simple consumer after all aren't you?
Cell phones, pagers, voicemail.. bah I say. If you want to get ahold of me it's your job to track me down not my job to have every available tracking device at your disposal.
Thanks, but no thanks.. you can keep your integrated office far away from me.
In the event of a colloquy, it picks the most vociferous participants.
Imagine what that would do to slashdot. Getting moderating up for larger and larger fonts?
No, the future is Digital Pants ... a so called, Smarty Pants.
DIGITAL PANTS ACTIVATE
For those who don't get it.
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
- xBox (notable as in conspicous in it's absence)
- Security advancements
- Handicapped enhancements (hands-free, etc)
- Walkup's for visitors (roving terminals that find you)
- Virtual labs (instant on workbench that doubles as a training desk)
- Hot swap connectivity (Apple's Rendezvous, anyone?)
- Headmounted displays (Dolby Surround headphones and body mounted CPUs)
It appears whomever coughed up this OOTNF idea spent 1/2 hour watching the Jetsons and decided they could milk some publicity....since Muslims pray towards Mecca *five* times a day. Salaam alechem, blood.
How can surround sound help someone develop Word documents or complete reports? How does that make using a database more efficient? WTF are they thinking goes on in offices or cubicles? On the other hand, why are the lines between home and office blurring? Because incompetent managers who cannot manage their resources continue to requre more and more overtime from salaried employees. It gets so bad that they even want you for company business off the clock at home. Read this as " Family and friend relationships are suffering more and more due to massive and intrusive employer demands. This continues to eat at our society until we look more and more like Japan did in 1987.". Jeez, when do we ever get to go home and not be the employee of the fscking month for a few hours?! If this is the future, who wants it??
no that there weren't a few interesting things mentioned in the article.
- being able to move the mouse pointer between computers (assuming these are separate computers, not just multiple monitors); I assume this indicates some sort of network-transpart clipboard (and that the user is signed onto both computers). cool, that.
- the larger, semi-circle screen - mostly for the cool wraparound aspect (semi-inevitable considering increasingly thin monitors and e-paper (somewhere) down the line, though).
Otherwise, it sounds like they're just hashing out more variations of video/audio conferencing - whoop-de-whoo.
There seems to be a problem of understanding the _purpose_ of business communication, vs. just the _forms_ of communication. Video and audio voicemail are high-bandwidth, low content, and do little to guide the sender towards composing a coherent message. When using text, OTOH, we are often forced to skip the details and focus on the meat of what we intend to say.
However, neither of these formats truly _aids_ us in the actual composition of our thoughts - one can easily compose a syntactically perfect text message with zero content - and this is even easier in audio/video formats.
A spreadsheet and a database are useful in that they assist use in ordering large amounts of quanitative data; unfortunately, we have few tools that assist us in bridging the gap between quantiative data and qualitative data, in other words, making our intent clear while exposing the reasoning behind it.
Step-by-step-"Wizards" are a (mostly) futile stab in the general direction of this, tending to assume a very rigid result (as well as presuming that we know the final format of the ends result from the start!); what we need instead are tools that allow us to begin very broadly, and then assist us in narrowing our concepts down until we have a clear set of assumptions, observations, related analysis, and conclusions.
Yes, there are many _people_ who are good at this, and there are processes for _teaching_ people to be good at this, but we don't (yet) have automated tools that are good with helping people accomplish this.
And until someone manages to construct the fundemental versions of those tools, we'll have to deal with new versions of tools that make it easier to transfer nonsense back-and-forth, vs. actually developing, refining, and communicating ideas. Anything less than this is just another improved method to pretend that we're in the same room with someone who's not.
Or, God forbid, another variation on Powerpoint (shudder).
'"Surround sound is going to be increasingly important in future offices," says group marketing manager Tom Gruver in leading a tour of the new facility.' Right. More chestnuts inside."
:P.
Dammit! Be quiet! You're gonna ruin it for the rest of us
And if my boss asks, the GeForce4 card that I ordered makes my uhhh..programs compile faster.
Not actually surround sound, but rather just an example of good sound, but "Silent Service" on the Commodore 64 way back when was incredibly exhilerating when the pings were getting closer and closer...and then the engine running overhead. Could have been on the Atari ST. Those days sort of blur together now.
I'll avoid bashing Microsoft directly at the moment despite the fact that I have problems with them as a business. I have a lot of issues with this "vision" of the future office, so here are a few points.
..."
:)
"It's dark" = The future workplace is full of EYESTRAIN.
"and hushed -- except for the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound [...] Surround sound is going to be increasingly important in future offices
Riiiight. So now we have our own concealed cubicles? And where did they pull that Surround sound crap? Most places I've seen don't even have speakers hooked up to computers because they're disruptive. Now we have to build each person their own little enclosed cubicle, so they can listen to their cute email noise in surround sound. Anyone want to try to tell me how the benifits of this will far outweigh the cost?
Side point #1 - "Few of the products have names, and none has an expected delivery date or price."
Sort of convinient as MS moves towards the subscription model. Think it's bad NOW being tech support and having people call you because their "thingy" is broken?
Side point #2 - I get surround sound, big new age LCD but no MS natural keyboard? (i prefer old school buckling spring myself, but whatever)
Aside from all this, does it all strike anyone as COMPLICATED? It seems like this works fine for tech companies such as IBM, Sun, MS, etc but what about other small/medium businesses. Most of the time just regular e-mail is a total clusterfuck, and now their talking sending video clips to car dashboards and signing in with a "biometric thumb-print detector"? I've seen this trend more and more with MS (among others). While user friendly is good, there is something to be said about KISS. It seems that Microsoft is getting more and more out of touch with "regular" buisnesses where people have a hard enough time getting e-mail right. Now I won't say that it isn't cool technology, but I mean almost all of this is just way beyond the scope of what small/medium buisnesses could ever hope to handle.
And where's my Athlon powered furnace/fireplace?
It would be fabulous not to have to waste the space taken up by monitor borders in my current multimonitor setup :)
I'm pretty sure that such a thing wouldn't be MS only- it looks like a curved triple size flat panel, and probably just appears to the OS as a single 3840x1024 screen or whatever.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Don't need them with this technology.
http://www.atcsd.com/tl_hss.html
I wonder if they can use phasing to cause the sound to follow you around the room?
Actually, having surround sound in an "office of the future" will be extremely important. I think the problem a lot of people have when thinking about something like this is they are thinking surround sound coming out of their computer speakers. But that is not the only place audio will be important in the "office of the future".
What will be great about these proposed offices is teleconferencing and immersive environments. And that is where surround sound (i.e. directional sound) will be incredibly important. If you are teleconferencing with several people, who will be spread out across a wall or several walls, you need audio to help you figure out who is talking. Without it, things will both feel weird and strain your brain. Think watching a movie with left and right channels reversed and both speakers on one side of your head instead of in front.
The same thing goes for video, BTW. You want eye contact to be there, so when you are talking to person A, you better be looking into person A's camera view.
Access Grid nodes encourage stereo sound and camera placement in-line with eye contact. Cool concept images and actual working prototypes of an "office of the future" can be seen at the UNC Office of the Future research site.
- Surround sound is an importent part of the workplace, because surround sound advertising embedded in the operating system that must be watched in order to continue to use the system is making Microsoft millions. Thanks to Palladium, there's no way around this.
- You try to copy a snippet from a webpage by simply moving a mouse pointer from your desktop to your laptop, but you don't have permission to copy the snippet from the webpage, and the copy action fails due to DRM.
- A worker tries to email his boss a clip of the broadcast news story about their company, but the embedded watermark blocks him from doing so.
- An email is forward to the CEO's car dash. The CEO's car 'blue screens', and literally crashes, killing the CEO, because for all the Microsoft rhetoric, they are still interested in neither security, nor correctness.
- Two of the six feet of the screen are dedicated to advertising.
Sarcastic? Yes. Overstated? Yes. Am I any more guilty of twisting things then Microsoft in this article? No.It's amazing how hard Microsoft's actual actions are working to block as much of this as possible and ruin it in every way, even as they talk this stuff up.
I want my monitor in Feel-Around!
I would prefer multiple monitors at 1600x1200 (indeed, I'd quite like a 4Kx4K monitor - sized appropriately - even if it had to be monochrome).
I've used multiple monitors for lots of things - at one point I was actively using four - one was monitoring web/systems/network activity, one was running tail -f on the web error log, one was for docs, database table definitions and so on, and the final one was for development. Virtual desktops and the like did not work anywhere near as well (though I once had this huge set of virtual desktops so it could hold an XEmacs that was something like 2000 columns wide - so it could hold the results of this MASSIVE join).
Quoting from the article: >send e-mails that include clips of newscasts >that refer to the company, rather than So I guess that Microsoft doesn't intend to apply this digital rights management to their own software.
As mentioned here quoted from this article. ;-)
Wow... I'd even get up early for work
The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
Actually, we already have a setup in the company where I work.
It's good to see M$ finally caught up with the surround sound workspace.
you really want the guy next to you blasting out weird music all day?
wireless headphones would be far better...
That's what the surround sound was for!
My ass. They can try to blur them all they want, but it will be a cold day in hell before my office is in my home. When I go home, I want to get away from work. My employer gets fully a third of my weekday existence as it is (8 hours of 24), plus occasional weekend work when things get tight. I don't want to go home, only to do more work. That's my time for family, friends, or just plain sitting on my couch in my boxers drinking a beer.
We've been way to permissive in allowing our employers to demand increasing amounts of our time, particularly those of us on salary, who don't get overtime pay. We need to grow a backbone, stand up, and declare, in one voice, "NO MORE!" If we fail to do so, we will all be changing our job descriptions to "wage slave," because that's what we'll be.
Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!
for the blue cylinder of death...
"At one desk, users can move a wireless mouse's pointer from the screen of one computer to the screen of a laptop, with no wire or wireless connection between the computers themselves. That allows copying or moving material between the computers, a task that would otherwise be more difficult." Maybe I'm missing something, but are they saying that in the future computers will be able to communicate with each other? Amazing!
:wq
The things that currently annoy the people who can actually use computers are going to get much worse. Your computer will still crash every time you try to search for a file on a network drive, and your OS will still inappropriately lock files for days or months at a time. You will have to have your fingerprints and a bone marrow sample taken, and give a urine sample while taking a polygraph exam to prove you are not an IP stealing terrorist pothead. Your monitor will be curved which will cross your eyes forever if you look at it for more than 12 minutes at any one time. The police will be at your door within minutes of trying to install an unsigned driver. And, of course, you'll be renting your software, and you'll like it.
"Video mail and e-mailed voice mail will be just a popular as e-mail or voice mail in five years," Gruver says.
er, didn't NeXTSTEP's Mail have Lip Service ten-plus years ago?
Think someone had the old thesaurus going there? Jeez, how hard is it to write "when more than one person speaks at the same time, it chooses the loudest voice."?
but I teleconference ALOT, and surround sound would actually KICK BUTT. On a phone meeting with 18 people any sort of directional focus would help. Beyond that and my MP3 collection, what other uses ? anyone ?
:)
Ooooo I NEED THX boss, for a proper development environment
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
ACK! The link got truncated. Corrected link
Program Intellivision!
"XML (Extended Markup Language) invisibly marks up a list of executives' names in a PowerPoint slide..."
;-) Maybe it's second gen XML?
Who needs 'extensible' now when the future will bring us the Extended Markup Language!
The employers I've known have deliberately removed sound equipment; radios, speakers, access to music - from their line workers' stations. Even IT departments I've visited in my recent work experience have been hard pressed to be allowed music in their offices. The secretaries are not allowed screensavers (which, well I agree with - their 486 "dedicated word processor" can't really handle them without making them think the machine has crashed after the TV commercials they've seen recently) and their calls and other communications are often randomly monitored - and this is explained to them in their employee handbook when they go to work there; along the lines of "nothing you do in the office may be considered personal or privileged", etc. One of my friends has been instructed that their office does not allow music because they do not want to be targetted in the event there is a 'copyright issue' - their words, not mine. So, if you're a higher-echelon, PHB, or own your own; maybe Surround Sound is in your future. Otherwise it will be a gimmick at your National Training Center - which is how the government usually does their conferencing and distance learning .
I think with the interesting people, their lives can't possibly be wrapped up into a nice little package.
Yeah, of course ... but what about the flying cars and silver suits with big shoulders?? :-)
[Insert pithy quote here]
- increasing the use of sound in user interfaces
- allowing users to move their mouse pointers to other computers' screen as a metaphor for network interaction
- quick multimedia translation, i.e. easy to email clips of newscasts and to make websites out of collected bits of info in various formats at the side of the screen.
- whiteboard/PC interaction
kudos to the engineers working on these. we should assimilate the basic ideas into open source UIs ASAP.the one thing i really thought was silly was emailing video instead of typing an email. it takes so much longer to listen to someone speak than to read an email. however, one thing i do expect to happen is to speak an email, have speech-recognition software transform it into text, proofread the text, and then send the email. since speaking is faster than typing but reading is faster than listening, this would be the most efficient for all parties.
Memo to Microsoft: maybe you should work on making your VPN infrastructure secure before encouraging people to access documents from anywhere!
E-mails are forwarded to car dashboards... I wonder how the NTSA (National Traffic Safety Association) feels about this...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Sometimes you have to wonder whether they do these things for PR, press, or so that there is something to distract people from the constant stream of security holes being found in their software....
In my next incarnation, I hope to come back as a code monkey.
What, no Evangelion, no Lain concepts?
with no wire or wireless connection between the computers themselves. That allows copying or moving material between the computers, a task that would otherwise be more difficult.
Copying data with no connection of any sort!
Bill really must be a genius.
Or quite, quite mad.
Then simple use the computer ala Dialpad to dial into the voicemail distribution that playes email and you can hear the computer read attachment.
The next step would be enabling idiots^H^H^H^H^H^Hcustomers to dial into a terminal server via VNC/VPN combo, so they can access the telephone (see first sentence) over a "virtual" phone on their PC. Then have Windows Remote Desktop servers up so they can use a second computer to access the first computer to access said phone to listed to computer voice transribed email of text from original call as transcribed.
Shit, wish I though of this sooner.
We also need computer consoles that explode in a hail of white sparks and smoke, possibly injuring the operator when something unusual is happening - a bit like those ones in Star Trek.
Makes me wonder why, some 400 years in the future, they don't have stricter guidelines on the construction of this equipment. And another thing, why don't they wear seatbelts to stop getting thrown about when a dylithium positronic relay explodes or something?
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
We quit trying to come up with a cosmic looking workspace with no functionality for the typical office worker and make something that allows the average worker to communicate better and enter more data. Even being able to format email is a waste of time.
hmm.. Arial, or CG Omega, which conveys my message best? Or should that word be bold. Shit like this drives productivity down the toilet. Simplify applications. By the way that is what I liked about Macs OS 7 - 8, can't speak to anything later. They let you do your work. They didn't bombard you with 38 fuckin ways to complete a task, so you had to think which would be better.
Christ, I want greenscreens and and less point and click.
"never met a Microsoft zealot"
I thought it was saying a wireless mouse with out wires.... What an incredible idea!
Mod this -1 AC
Thank goodness spends so much money on innovation research. Without them we would never have known that bigger monitors are better.
I've experiments to run, there is research to be done on the people who are still alive.
Maybe MS will try to embrace and extend this:
http://www.nullsoft.com/free/nbeep/
Are there different visions of the future workplace beside Microsoft's? I would be particularly interested in the ideas stemming out of Open Source Community. Any pointer'd toward particular URLs are welcome.
Why, because there will be no other OSes on the market in 5 years to compare to? Or will they redefine "market" so it includes only them?
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
The point is to create a need for new office hardware and software, since the current paradigm of office suite, email, and browser have leveled off in terms of demanding that software and hardware upgrades be purchased by businesses in order for them to say with the curve.
The slashdotters are right; no one actually needs wraparound monitors, wireless mice, surroundsound speakers, or video email. But Microsoft has a few billion dollars that say they can make you (or your company's IT management) believe that you do need them all. In fact, the need for them to keep their current rate of growth steady (and their stock price (and the executives' net worth) up) demands that they do.
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
I can see it now....a BSOD on a 6 foot wrap-around screen accompanied by a 5.1 digital surround sound alarm.... Something to look forward to!
my friend, www.linuxisforbitches.com is something you should take a look at since you're the vermin that has infested the Linux community. bashing MS is a simple "bandwagon" response and I bet you haven't a freakin clue about what security entails... idget
I gotta book one of these vacation packages to :)
:)
Microsoft's own Epcot Center! Currently offered
in the travel section of MSN.com
--
BTW thanks Microsoft for making me laugh
You so need to tell me what you said to your boss to get hooked up with dual flat panels. I have to say the only thing out of that article that would be useful for me is the huge monitor. I can't count the number of times I have to sit their and flip between desktops and try to find that missing window that got burried. 6 feet of surround monitor would be awesome but 2-3 LCD displays would be a fine substitute :).
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Blue Phone of death?
"booo-beee-BEEEEE! WE're sorry! This phone has caused a core dump and will now be shut down. Good bye!"
bloody fookin' 'ell.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
May God have mercy on all of us. Can you imagine the insane management trends we're going to have to suffer through due to this? They're going to put the most outlandish Dilbert strips to shame.
Yet more proof that MS == Satan.
as on how to create the office of the future, then I'd like to hear them. I'm seeing lots of bellyaching, but no one is coming up with any wonderful schemes as to how Redhat or Slackware or Linux in general is looking ahead. Before you come down on Microsoft, how about some ideas of your own?
jds
woot! another STer!
Um, yeah, get a load of this quote:
# XML (Extended Markup Language) invisibly marks up a list of
# executives' names in a PowerPoint slide, so that dropping the
# list into an e-mail's "To" field turns the names into the
# execs' e-mail addresses.
Let me get this straight: in the future office environment,
every time you put together a slide show, Microsoft wants you
to fill in all sorts of extra information that isn't relevant
to the presentation and won't show up in the slideshow, in
case at a later time someone wants to send an email? Huh?
What if I want to drop that list of names into Timidity or
somesuch -- should the person who creates the slideshow also
add each executive's favourite work of music to their markup?
How about also filling in their birthdates, so I can drop the
list on my calendar application? Riiiight.
It's nice to see MS talking about using XML, but you'd think
they could come up with a use for it that would be... useful.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
How about make a public bathroom of the future? I don't like that 1-foot gap on the bathroom doors & walls to the floor, nor the 5-foot gap from the ceiling.
That's where you can do some innovation.
Well, at least they've figured out that pretty soon, Linux is going to win in the office arena. They know their OS and software can't beat it, so now I suppose they'll provide all sorts of magical hardware and futuristic office space to lure people away from the cheaper solution. Oh well..at least they actually had to come up with something innovative this time.
Please allow the grammar nazi to ask the following question... How in the heck do mock-up plane seats and a car dashboard allow me to easily access work documents? Because of this guy's grammatical continuity error, it sounds as though the lines between home and mock-up junk are blurring.
One needs to thank the futuristic technology for allowing easy document access, not the mock-up junk.
Rather than see the lines between home and office blur, I'd rather see the lines between personal electronics blur. Apple has the right idea with iSync, but why should it stop with Celular phones and PDAs. Why can't one sync up an PDA addressbook with officephone. I shouldn't have to read some number off of a display and then manually type it into a telephone. That's not syncing the most important thing to sync to. Futhermore, addressbooks could be synced to fedex/mail drops so you never write an address, or synced through the phone, so that you never have to give an address to a flower-delivery or pizza delivery person. My appointments sync with my doctor's/hair stylists. Get the idea?
Keeping
Great, so everything is going totally multi-media right? I love the idea of future stop errors every hour since MS loves to code buggy OS. Instead of a blue screen with Text you will get a huge picture of Bill Gates face smiling down at you and saying (in surround sound no less):
"Stop Error 0 by 00000072. Caused in module MS0wnzJ00.dll. Please deposit $20 into the automated MS Tax collection machine to reboot your computer. Have a great day BWAHAHAHA".
So every visitor to this wonderful little toyroom gets their thumbprint taken? Gee, what's Microsoft going to do with an enormous database of important executives' thumbprints? Keep it nice and secure? Uhhhmmm...
@ (That's an anonymous thumbprint)
After using all the notes from A# through to G# to refer to new technologies Microsoft has thrown its weight behind the decimal music system.
... Security (tm) due out in the future ... always in the future.
The new MS Decimal Music System (r) will be known as H# leaving I# to denote Microsoft's latest innovation
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
1. There /. goes again. MSFT tries to jump-start the economy by convincing the suits that they need surround sound. Maybe, just maybe, their neck-tie addled brains might be induced to increase capex (that's capital expenditure for those who've never watched CNBC) and kick-start the hi-tech sector but NoooOOOOooo. Slashdot has to point out their idiocy before they even have a chance. Waytogo Slashdot. Now all the geeks are gonna talk about it and when the weekly e-mail monitor reports go out to the suits they might get clued. Best thing is nobody says anything negative about this from now on.
2. This is the autoshow. Of course the funky-looking cars with Wankel-engine powered window cranks and video exhaust system diagnostics never make it to the show-room. These are the tech equivalent of concept cars. Oooooh... pretty. But everybody knows it's not the final product.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Voice mail comes as .wav attachments, open in your favorite player, skip the uninteresting parts and get to the point.
So, um, how do you tell which parts are the interesting parts?
where picard gets a message from earth in video form.
I can see it now, every MS employee will get a video email from Bill Gates, "welcome salves, today you must kiss my ass, while i get $6m richer, and your stocks/life savings diminish by 1.2%"
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
It seems like the weirdest and wildest fashions always appear in fashion shows, but nobody in their right minds would actually wear those fashions. Microsoft's workplace of the future is similar to a fashion show because they're attempting to probe the possible directions that technology will take us. In all likelihood, the future won't be as wild as they depict it to be.
Um, I didn't read the article, but that's wrong.
sic transit gloria mundi
At least as far as this article is concerned...that wrap around monitor is hellacool!!! Sign me up....screw it...I'll even run XP if I can take one of those bad boyz home! :)
This useful invention... i.e. keeping the context of objects on the screen... is 20 years old, invented at MIT for the Lisp Machine. Natch.
Ciccarelli, E.C., Presentation Based User Interfaces, AI Technical Report 794, August 1984.
Nah, it seems more like they're just using existing character regoc. stuff to find names. Shirley they are assuming Outlook would be handling the mail, and that already has some support for mapping names to email addresses.
"In the event of a colloquy, it picks the most vociferous participants."
Complete and utter stupidity. It's nothing more than a hardon for futurama. Video mail, voice messages, big fancy screens, surround sound, yeah, I think they've been watching too much scifi. Security? Productivity? Organization? Reliability? Data backup? User interface? Learning curve? Apparently these things will not be a concern in "the future" because MS says we'll need surround sound email messages more.
Crimeny! Most office environments are so noisy it's a wonder that anyone can get anything done that requires even the smallest amount of concentration. If Microsoft wants to make a contribution to the office environment, make that surround sound speaker system do some serious noise cancellation. That might actually be useful.
As for the line between the living room and the office getting blurred? Who in the name of $DIETY wants to have the office getting anywhere near their living room. Am I supposed to be thrilled about the prospect of my boss or a coworker calling me up through my TV to ask some stupid question that could have -- and should have -- waiting until morning?
These ideas are about as silly as Nicholas Necroponte's hilarious predistions that I'd be checking my email in the shower or some of the other drek that he used to spew in Wired magazine.
>workers e-mail each other spoken messages, or videos of themselves delivering messages,
In other words, you'll get to hear other people's email too! Imagine actually being able to listen to other people's spam. Now that's what I call progress.
Seriously. There's a reason why people use email instead of voice mail. Microsoft must be getting really desperate if that's the best they can come up with.
---
Open Source Shirts
Yah but only because their clever legal department found a way to trademark that phrase.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Yeah, it comes in handy when you are watching bad movies instead of working...
Of course. Don't you understand? It is the office of the future, like on The Jetsons. All we'll have to do is push a button, then sit back and relax...
There was an article on Sony in Wired a couple of YEARS ago where Sony researchers demonstrated the picking up of a file on a desktop screen (I mean a REAL DESKTOP SCREEN) and putting it on a WALL screen (I mean a REAL WALL SCREEN).
Obviously Microsoft stole this idea along with everything else they've ever put out with the sole exception of some font tech...
And even further back, Stewart Brand's Media Lab book had them using wall screens that moved around the display space and zoomed on objects simply by looking at them (lasers tracking eye movement, IIRC)...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Thanks for the insight... it sounds like a very nice environment you have. However, this simply underscores the problem.
It has been my experience, reflected by the popularity of cultural icons like Office Space and Dilbert, that organizations (both corporate and US Government) tend not to have such a wealth of workspace. The average employee does not get their own office space. They're lucky if they get their own cube. Furthermore, management seems eager to explore ways to further share a shared workspace - witness the interest in "hoteling".
This leads to two points. First, sound is more a disruptive entity than enhancement of this shared space. Secondly, a business is not likely to invest in the extra money for a good set of surround sound speakers to further that disruption.
Scoffing at Microsoft's claims that surround sound will be an important part of the office is not simply dismissing the point out of hand. It is recognizing the current environment. And it might further question whether Microsoft's visionaries are too removed from the reality of that current environment.
Some Prof and his GAs put together something and gave it away. I tried that and tried a keyboard controlled kvm. This thing had the copy paste advantage. Though it wasnt a wireless mouse at the time.
Basically you could move a wired mouse and when it hit an edge if you pushed further it would move to the next computer. You had to run a "special" driver on each box and when you moved across, your keyboard and your clipboard would follow. I didnt have a mac ( it worked on win and mac ) but on windows, the clipboard copy worked nice. I dropped it thought when they didnt have NT drivers. I totally forgot about it cause I started using apex kvms. Anyone remember who did this?
So, um, how do you tell which parts are the interesting parts?
;)
You listen to it once, making a note of the time elapsed when you heard an interesting bit. Then you go back to the start and skip to the bits you made a note of.
Geez. Is it that hard
"I'm tired of all this 'Aren't humanity great' bullshit. We're a virus with shoes" - Bill Hicks
*Swoosh!* ==mail sent!==
Thanks computer! Now, pull up the Microso...==mail received!==
open it please.
*click* [wraparound view of a pink slip] *click*
[surround sound]
Ms. Fiorina, Microsoft has purchased your company. Your services are no longer required! Final credits have been transferred - All authorizations terminated!
Please proceed to the exit
==clunk, beep!==
==Thank you for working at Hewlett Compaqard!==
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
I don't want new-fangled surround-sound. The wrap-around screen is neat, but I don't want that either.
:(
I'd just like an office, with a door. That I can close. So I can get work done. I promise to still talk to people who need to talk to me. Heck, I'll even have "office hours" so people can get face-time.
I just want an office.
Today I got interrupted 42 times (yeah, I counted, kinda sad) at my cube. All variations of "I have a quick question." I don't think I got much work done today. Well, I answered some emails.
Please stop talking about the bright lights of the future and give me a door.
So I can work.
Thanks.
this company is closer to what you want.
No, I'm not a shill who works there, but I used to work in a call center that uses their stuff. Customer calls in, the system pulls their phone number off caller ID, looks up their account in the database from the phone number, and displays it on the screen. Stuff like that.
1)Many offices already have the problems of idiot "admin assistants" sending out 2mb Powerpoint (or Word) documents filled with details about a baby shower, photos of their new niece/grandchild/whatever, or "motivational" crap. the LAST thing people like that need is *video messages* they can send out. Great! 2 gig .avi files showing the new baby puking. Lovely.
2)Surround sound? Wow, that'll be great for management. Many people chained to a cubicle don't have the luxury of having their own CDROM drive, much less a sound card and speakers. So is Microsoft trying to tell us that cubicle dwellers will soon have the same luxury as management? I highly doubt it.
When Microsoft develops an "office of the the future" that removes the slave-like, locked down environments people have now, I'll be interested.
That's funny, in almost all of the offices I've done tech work for, they all have their speakers OFF most of the time. LOL
Seriously man. Sound systems at the office desk are a BIG no-no. First off, this means every moron will be playing his or her music, which may or may not suck. Secondly, Microsoft's "noises for everything" campain is annoying. Noises that do not pertain to me distract me.
:) I'd be down to have my desktop look like Pre-Crime :)
And what's the deal with the video / audio emails? I can guarantee you that they will not catch on. (anyone own a video phone?) Email is great because -we don't- have to listen or see each other. People like it because it is impersonal, you don't have to rush your thoughts, etc etc.
And then there is the data transfer wireless mouse. Now there's something that I'll break or misplace. Whatever happened to networks? It's easier to drag and drop a file over to someone... why should I walk over to someone's office with my mouse? That's idiotic.
It's like MS just doesn't "get it." Moreover, I don't mean to preach, but companies like Apple do (to some extent) "get it."
I mean, why make wireless data mice. Why not work on zero-config wireless networking (like OS X supports now)? And why annoy the HELL out of coworkers with dolby 6.1 "you've got mail" sounds. Why not work on soft silent visual cues insead (ie OS X can do a subtle 'pulse' of a users display instead of using alert sounds)?
The only thing I want from that artical is that monitor
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
No, not them. YOU - and the idiots who modded you up.
At work, they recently introduced unified messaging. Guess what? I love it! When someone leaves me a voicemail, it shows up as an email in my inbox with a sound-file as an attachment. I can check my voicemail anywhere that I have email access. I have one place where I get incoming messages - be they email or voicemail. I can work away from my desk without worrying about not seeing that blinking red light on my phone.
So, YOU welcome to the real world. Not everyone works exactly where you do in exactly the same way you do. In the real world, some people prefer to leave voicemail. Some people leave messages even when they don't have access to a computer or their address book.
So exactly who is clueless? Is it the average Slashdotter who makes fun of something without even understanding what it does?
Mmmm.. Donuts
haven't tried 1.1 or 1.2a yet
Try 1.1 - it will make you believe that Mozilla is better. It's quite a bit faster, and is very stable. And the popup ad blocking is a nice bonus.
basically its going to cost a lot of money and make people crash while reading e-mail in their cars? Yum, sounds like great stupidty...
Support Objectivism and the United States,
Ayn Rand
1. Install openssh
2. Get the public/private keys setup
3. RTFM the manpage on scp
4. Bliss!
Democrat delenda est
The monitor look f--- great, tho.
"640KB should be enough for everyone"
EOM
"There is an emphasis here on security, but that doesn't mean we can't be visionary," Gruver explains.
What makes me hesitate though, isn't the ideas but the way M$ is approaching things. The inhouse software only policy they ride is counterproductive if they want to achieve technology perks like these.
:-)
M$ has 3 choices:
1. Carry on as usual ("inhouse software only") and eventually lose monopoly. (Linux is scaring the creeps outta them allready - a little late if you ask me)
2. Make an all out change to a service orietated company with all the certification and stuff. Embrace and extend OSS. (Difficult. It could be to late for that allready. To many ppl know about M$ vs. *nix allready.)
3. Move to closed hardware gadgets and generate revenue from locked hardware/software combos. (XBox anyone? Bills favorite upcoming Tablet PC anyone?)
This article is another indication that they are moving towards number 3. Not the dumbest thing for them to do.
One thing you have to admit: If M$ does marketing mistakes, they usually do them fast enough to notice early on if they are right or wrong.
A well, what ever, im just gonna set up that Drag and Drop from Box to Box with 2 or 3 little XFree configuration evenings. Cuz' that's a cool idea.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I like that. If there's no wired or wireless connection between those computers, then there are no electrons or radio waves involved, meaning that this could be faster than light. Just think of the applications!
[...] semicircular 6-foot screen that wraps around in front of the user. The screen technology is called D# ("D Sharp").
Nonononono. Why did they have to choose the letter D, of all letters. Why not B#, pronounced "Be sharp" . Or A# as in "that's A# screen". Or C#, but that's already taken. Y#? iSharp?
Sheesh. --Bud
It looks like someone has been smoking too much Merriam-Webster again. I believe there should be health warnings on dictionaries: "Excessive quoting from dictionaries may lead to people hitting you over the head".
Money for nothing, pix for free
At one desk, users can move a wireless mouse's pointer from the screen of one computer to the screen of a laptop, with no wire or wireless connection between the computers themselves. That allows copying or moving material between the computers, a task that would otherwise be more difficult...
Wow I am really impressed, shocked even, amazed, astounded, floored, awed,... oh wait I've been doing this for three years at work with VNC and x2vnc between my linux and windows desktops. Plus, hold your breath for this... only one keyboard too. I know, I know, it's incredible isn't it? I find it hard to work I just stare at this amazing feature every day.
Give me a break, no wire, or wireless connection? It's on the network you fucking moron. IMHO that constitutes a fucking wire.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
You can laugh about this but in the end most software is bought by pointy-hairs who are mightily impressed by features like this. Microsoft knows this better than anyone I guess. So if we want Linux to make it on the desktop we'd better make sure these features are developed soon!
-- Cheers!
Like their recent press release for their next generation of vaporware, this looks like a delaying tactic to give the illusion that the company is going somewhere. From that view, at best it can delay an audit until the company can get a world level monopoly (and thus positive cash flow) through DRM. At worst it can postpone the date when the company flatlines, but postpone long enough for major share holders to offload.
DRM is their last hope. It won't help them out of their security and design problems, but it will let them keep dominion of the desktop and keep using that as a hammer. Otherwise, OS X did an end run around them for the desktop. In general, MS products cannot compete on technical merits, especially security, or price. Even Balmer and Allchin now admit it publicly. And it looks like Microsoft is not likely to catch up, either.
Having been found guilty of illegally maintaining a monopoly, MS will no longer be able to rely on purely on existing marketshare either. In fact many key applications types (spreadsheets, wordprocessing, fincancial software) are starting to appear on faster, cheaper, more secure, more easily maintained platforms. Quite a few execs and VPs have been hopping off recently. Bill himself stepped down as CEO the first year Microsoft posted a major loss.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
In the 1960s, Ford said we'd be driving atomic-powered cars in 20 years. In the 1930s, just about everyone assumed we'd all have our private helicopter or airplane by 1980. (Imagine the air congestion and accidents with that...soccer moms flying their SUV-copters.) And we're still waiting on our Mr. Fusion powerplants...
Yogi Berra said it best. "It's tough to make predictions. Especially about the future."
Cheers,
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
Quoth the article: Instant-messaging buddies are grouped to reflect their hierarchy in the company, or where they're logged in. E-mails, instant messages and Web pages can be grouped into "Info Clusters" and then e-mailed or quickly turned into a Web site.
Nah, this is more like "Metropolis" or "Brave New World" -- where everyone knows their place in the Great Corporation, and the technology is there primarily to enforce that hierarchy (oh, good Ford!).
Maybe MS should have been more honest and obvious and referred to the managers in the "widget factory" as Betas, with the bosses Alphas. And handed out lots of soma. Orgy-porgy...
So much for the Internet flattening out society. Looks like MS wants it to be the tool for The Man to keep us peons where we belong.
Cheers,
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
Surely everyone knows that in the future everyone's going to be running Linux!
Hello,
You are right that this is already possible but I believe you are missing the point. What the article is saying is that a user can use two computers as if they were one in dual-head mode (nearly).
"At one desk, users can move a wireless mouse's pointer from the screen of one computer to the screen of a laptop"
Now this IS already perfectly possible - I am doing it right now. You have to install VNCserver on one desktop, and a little program called Win2VNC on the other. Win2VNC creates a 1pix stripe up the side of your main machine's desktop, and when hovered over, all keyboard and mouse actions are sent to the VNC server.
You can get Win2VNC at : http://www.hubbe.net/~hubbe/win2vnc.html
Everyone I've shown it to has said "WOW!!"..
It's good.
Alex.
Why not have it just take n number of video imputs? Basically, instead of having 2 monitors, its possible just to have one screen with the same amount of screen space, but with two inputs. Then its compatable with any multi-headed capable OS.
Suppose it would be a niche product though. Be nice for saving space and avoiding the monitor borders I have now with my dual setup.
why should it stop with Celular phones and PDAs. Why can't one sync up an PDA addressbook with officephone. I shouldn't have to read some number off of a display and then manually type it into a telephone.
Shouldn't there be a couple of question marks in there?
Burn the heretic! Burn!
Like the screen, great idea - how cool would Unreal Tournament 2003 be on that thing :) But can we say Matrox Parhelia with 3 screens on it.
Surround sound in the office - yes I can see where it may be useful in a few situations where you are showing a demo but for 99% of office staff it'll suck like a dyson, still more people for me to throw things at.
The mouse thing sounds groovy but they really are just hyping up a network, could even just be thin clients and moving the mouse/file between sessions.
E-mail forwarded to car dashboards - sounds like more car crashes thanks to people watching mpeg messages whilst driving. Oh sorry the cars will be driving themselves, my bad.
I can see the scandals now as some bod in accounting mails someone outside the company a portion of a spreadsheet but the default Microsoft option has attached the rest of it too.
XML is Extensible Markup Language not Extended!
The whiteboard idea would be good if it didn't already exist in classrooms, admittedly the wealthy ones but even so.
'"The lines between home and office are blurring," he says'
They can stay nicely defined thank you when I've finished work I've finished work I have no wish to continue at home. I don't mind being flexible with my work time so long as the company is flexible when I need it too.
Hmm bio metric thumb scanners - weren't these the same scanners that you can defeat using gelatine?
So on the whole not very many new ideas, lots of old ideas that just don't happen to be commonplace yet.
*yawn*
Force yourself to play Half-Life, go on! ;-)
It is rather good - well, except maybe for the bit where it turns into a platform game...
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Sure, because it's much easier to say what you mean in one flawless take than to type it up, edit and then send. Of course, video's also a lot easier to edit than plain text, if you do make a mistake. Also, it'll be nice to know that your clients can see exactly what you look like at 8.30am on a Monday.
For fuck's sake. Let's not even go into the surround sound. How are these people still in business?
All the fancy screens and video technology won't disguise the fact that Microsoft Office is a bad way to work productively with computers. The document-oriented model (based around preparing documents for print) is outdated - try collaborating through a wiki for a week and you'll see what I mean.
I can only imagine that this is some sort of disinformation campaign to fool the competition.
But that's the problem. It's too simplistic. I know they're trying to reach the largest demographic, the user who just wants to log on and go. But I'm still waiting for a version with the little bells and whistles that make Mozilla such a joy to use. Tabbed browsing, for one.
I recently started using Opera. Wonderful browser! It's as stable as IE(to me, anyway), and has everything(and then some) that I loved about Mozilla. Tabbed browsing. Translations, search and dictionary options right from the right-click menu. The ability to turn off images, popups and banner ads. E-mail client integration from within the browser. Refreshing at intervals. Mouse gestures. I could go on.
I think even average Joe user would do well to try out a browser like this. It's an all-in-one solution.
Actually, I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't caught onto these ideas and "embraced" them like they do everything else.
Either way, say what you will. But I'll likely never use IE again. Heh, and that's quite a statement coming from a staunch ass like me. ;p~
"People should be allowed to keep midgets as pets."
- Gov. Jesse Ventura
I'm working on a research car here that the plan is to have 4 "sound cones." One above each passenger. Presumably, one person could talk on their speaker phone while someone else listens to music. I don't see how the sound cone will prevent the speaker phone from picking up the kid's awful singing or how the teen girl on the phone won't be heard by everyone in the car(atleast you only hear one side of the conversation). But atleast music and callee's will be private, unless the cones can cancel each other out. I've heard one of those sound cones myself...there is alot of leakage(mostly because it will reflect off the floor). But they say the ones they want in the car are better than the one I heard.
Anyways, my point is this would be much better for listening to video e-mail and such...and also if you want those swooshing sounds when you move your windows around and stuff. Just like in Minority Report. Using a computer becomes a dance. Yeah, right! I don't even see Speech Recognition being used because nobody wants to speak out loud to their computer. I can't imagine how embarassing that would be. Imagine trying to surf porn with a voice controlled computer.
can these idiots ever be more out of touch? I have a stack of speakers that came in accompanying the computers we purchase - never deployed. I am purchasing inexpensive monitors, not broad bench displays (guess at cost, what? $2500 each?). M$FT is so wrong-directioned it is embarassing, pitiful, sad, quaint, ignorant, stupid, infuriating...
So we've got everyone in the office talking over everyone else trying to message each other, while these bloody great surround sound speakers play whale song or dolphin noises or whatever management have heard makes people more productive this week?
In any event, people won't like using voice e-mail, the same way they now don't like talking to answerphones, voice mail, or any crappy voice recognition system. They all suck.
This is just about complete crap...
I can't even get my company to replace my 4 year old Dell laptop, and now they're supposed to be footing the bill for all this?
Sounds of paperclip wooshing on... 'Hi, it looks like you're trying to design an office! Please select from the following templates...'
Martin Piper
Owner - ReplicaNet and RNLobby
I think about the ideas Douglas C. Engelbar did, vs. the Microsoft "vision of the future".
.
Consider: Douglas Engelbart didn't just come up with wizzier ways to do the same old crap ("Look, this thing AUTOMATICALLY puts the memo in the pneumatic tube FOR YOU!"), he looked at technologies that didn't exist yet and asked "And how could this be used to be more productive".
Ever since seeing that video I have been asking "And where is that sort of demo TODAY?" "What would a demo that is as far in advance of today's state of the art look like?"
It would take ENORMOUS resources to pull off such a demo. It would take an organization that has plenty of R&D money to be able to do that kind of research.
Microsoft could do it - they have the people, they have the money. What they don't have is the vision
My apologies to the various Microsoft employees that read Slashdot, but I assert that MS does not have the vision to create a demo on the scale of the Englebart demo. Englebart's vision was "How can we improve our ability to work on complicated projects", Microsoft's vision is "How do we gain even more monopolies and make even more money". MS employees, this is not a slam against you - it is an indictment of the very top level of management at Microsoft.
And mind you, Microsoft is not alone in this - most companies today are as myopic as a mole in this. They have no motivation to really improve the world, they improve the world only as a side effect of trying to "maximize shareholder value". But the companies that REALLY take off are not the ones trying to artificially inflate their stock price, but rather those companies who's products truly revolutionize the world.
www.eFax.com are spammers
I remember doing this with tools like X2X, or just asking xemacs to open a window on the other display, and pasting into it from there.
Ahh, so if this is 5 years off, then they'll have it working in 20. Actually they'll release it on-time with nothing working so you can put in an extra hunderd bucks or so a year for upgrades until it's finished in 2022. It's actually an interesting concept, get your client/users to invest in your research and development. Then you don't have to convince outside investors in your ideas. Kind of like heroin. It's still evolving, thanks to it's users!
I work at work, and I work at home. Now I work in the car as well?
I sure am glad that the state of New York only banned cell phone use, and not email reading while driving because that will not distract drivers!
Not even an intelligent one! just one who saw Hackers!
--- What
Anyone who has done a really complicated visionary presentation knows that you can fake 90% of your material and resutlts before the real deal comes out. Furthermore, when it actually comes to make your product, its never as cool as the presentation you boastfully displated.
I didn't think this was a very cool presentation, so I'd hate to see what the final results of this crap would be. We all also know how M$ likes to make big promises and never deliever on them the way they should.
Incedentally, I'd like to point out that the Mac OS has supported large quanities of multiple displays for years. M$ just makes shitty knock offs of everything else then can steal.
"Surround sound is going to be increasingly important in future offices," says group marketing manager Tom Gruver in leading a tour of the new facility.
I work in an open plan office. There are Unix and Windows users. We Unix users all hate Windows because of the loud and intrusive sound of the weekly defrag that all the Windows users insist in necissary for the continued funtion of their machine.
Add Surround Sound and I think we'll see people resorting to violence.
Do you mind, your karma has just run over my dogma.
No doubt there will be some gaping security hole in the data mouse. You leave it in your bag and walk out of the building and some kid's mouse on the bus transfers some blistering nasty command script to your mouse. You go to work and infect the entire enterprise.
In the age of more security data transfering mice would be shot down in a second. If not you will start at a company and have to fill out a form to get permission to use a mouse and then it will tethered to the desk so it can't leave the building....
No f*cking way I am going to log into a mouse.
I'm sick all this crap.
In a faux living room, Gruver shows how documents on a computer at work can be accessed easily at home. . . . or in the air or in a car...
or how 'bout sitting in a bar?
Why not access them in a box,
or sitting right next to a fox?
I love to find my Microsoft docs,
resting next to my dirty socks.
I love them, people, yes I do.
Go buy Microsoft so you can too!
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
... you could grab some pr0n or DRM/warez material on your machine, mouse it over to your co-workers screen, and call the Microsoft cops on them!
This could get devilish. Where do I sign up, Bill?
This space for rent.
Of course, this made me go double-check and make sure I had filtered out Katz's stories - I didn't. Then I realized that I haven't had a good bout of blinding rage in a while. Has anyone else noticed that he hasn't posted anything for several months? Wonder what's up with that? Not that I want him back, good riddance. I just wonder if someone finally told him to hit the road.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
The image of using the mouse to copy a file from the screen of your desktop machine to the screen of your laptop just shows that they are way behind.
There is no desktop anymore -- not for Cube workers. The Laptop is the desktop, either via a docking port connected to a keyboard and screen, or just using the Laptop in your cubicle, and then taking it home with you at night.
Most people I know carry their laptop everywhere as it's essentially their entire "office" in a bag. First of all, many people are temps. Also, with businesses being bought and sold like daily bread, you're likely to move cubicles more than twice a year, either because you're changing departments or the department itself is moving.
Very few people have the kind of "permanent office" that allows a 6 foot screen, surround sound, and the other luxuries, unless there's going to be a sudden decrease in the population, and a sudden abundance in office space.
Try living in a city, Microsoft, instead of a Suburb. Remember those things called cities? They are where most of your customers are!
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
With all M-Soft bashing aside, this actually isnt all that bad of an idea. I especially liked the D# screen technology (which may or may not already exist). Doing a multi-screen desktop is annoying, I hate having to look at different monitors with a nice big gap between them, a single monitor like that actually seems somewhat more practical (which again, may or may not already exist). And the idea of dragging files onto a laptop seemingly actually isnt a bad one, although Id get annoyed with the possibility of dragging to far and always ending up on the laptop, and Im sure some technical issue will cause a slight 3 second delay when that happens, just enough to annoy me. Other than that, the rest reminds me of my office when I was still doing laser shows. 5.1 surround sound (although I always keep my sound effects off, their annoying), voice email and memos, XML, most of this technology already exists, and truth be told, if it hasnt been fully embraced by the office community now, why would it in 5 years? And the only time Ive ever seen news articles quoted, are on blogs. Anyway, depite the fact that you could make a lot of this stuff happen now, and most of it seems unnecessary, its actually not a bad vision, but I wouldnt pay the money for a company of about 5,000 people to all have a setup like this...
The hacker of the future:
You're sitting at your computer, minding you own business, when SUDDENLY a SECOND mouse pointer zooms onto your screen, latches on to a file, and starts dragging it off the desktop.
Oh yea, that sounds like a GREAT idea.
Has anyone worked in an cube farm where people have speakers? Let me tell you nothing makes you want to turn around and go home quicker than the sound of dozens of PCs all blasting out their startup sounds and endless beep confirmations. As soon as I had a say about buying the next series of PCs the speakers went right out the door with the old machines, "Sorry, you'll have to use headphones to listen to your Celine Dione cd". It is bad enough dealing with phones with the ringer volume cranked up to the max (not to mention the mouths of the owners).
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I think that we (the Linux/Unix & Open Source community) should seize the term "B#" and make it our own since the sound (be sharp) implies that we strive to be intelligent and do smart things, plus in music the (really non-existant) "B#" means "C" and most of our stuff is written in C anyway :-)
Sound too corny?
"Video mail and e-mailed voice mail will be just a popular as e-mail or voice mail in five years,"
...
Great, now we get to hear e-mail sent to the
bozo in the next cubicle
Instead of just voice mail that s/he decides
to listen to using the phone's hands free speaker....
They wait for someone else to show the way, follow for a bit and then use all their might to swallow their competitors.
They don't have to waste money and time on researching new concepts and ideas, their competitors do it for them.
Deleted
.. That allows copying or moving material between the computers, a task that would otherwise be more difficult.
I can see it now.. "Error: The clipboard content you have selected may contain copyrighted material and cannot be transferred to this machine without prior authorization"
BTW, if you want multiple-desktop keyboard / mouse / clipboard integration today, check this out.
The original submission, as well as countless comments, is just trying to find something to Microsoft bash, and you're being stupid. I hate Microsoft, and I still see the wisdom in the statement "Surround sound will be important..."
For that matter, so will a 3 dimensional desktop. On the Surround Sound front, it's not to watch DVDs, it's to give you better aural cues while you're working. When an application in the tray needs attention, the beeps come from the lower right. When your MS Office paperclip assistant wants you're attention, the sound comes from that direction, etc. Audio cues can make things more usable - and it becomes even more true if you consider a 3-d desktop environment to be the future.
11*43+456^2
You're on to something with them inventing this telephone. I need to immediately patent saving the call to a device for replay later in case you can't answer the phone - and perhaps patenting an id display to see who is calling.
I'll make millions!
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
"Surround sound is going to be increasingly important in future offices"
At first I thought this was a joke. However, then I realized one way it was possible. The previous slashdot article Voices in your head outlines a point focus method where inaudible sound could be beamed over distance and converge at the listener. This may be useful for surround?.
Of course, then we need a white noise generated to silence the guy in the next cubie who sings to himself - phorm
I was told I.. could .. listen to my music... they let Susan listen so .. I asked that I should be able to.
yeah yeah ok.
snif snif snif...is that Vapourware? Funny, MS stuff usually smells like something different.
This sounds like any number of sci-fi visions of society as a hellish beehive of workers who never leave their jobs behind. What bothers me most is the push for car-mounted information displays. I hope soembody is working on getting the cars to steer themselves while the "driver" reads email, sends the boss a status report and tells the micro-refrig-owave at home to nuke a pizza, while ransacking the glove compartment for blood pressure pills.
Don't forget H#. I'm sure Microsoft won't!
Ha! The URL is incomplete -- it's not even a complete host name. And yet it gets modded up as informative.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
You mean there's an end of a pineapple that isn't rough?
in these situations very well. The idiot with the Southpark sound bites gets one warning and then I smash the computer and blame it on the janitor.
CTRL X 2
two screens.
free
like they say in the commercials. What if I am about to buy my girl a ferrari and I want a red car and she wants a black car. And we switch colors a couple times. How is my office going to handle that? HUH
windows OS end up so insecure. They let customers decide what features should be included in the OS even if it is incredibly insecure. How about we set up a cutesy VBscript that allows you to drag and drop from any computer onto yours and place this script in every part of the GUI. Wouldn't that be cool? Oh I forgot to add some XML.
eventually have to come to grips with is that these whiz bang features are ALL inherently insecure. Bringing in a focus group of housewives or PHBs might be a great way to learn what products will sell to the public but you end up with a false economy because the products are incredible insecure.
I will never think of pineapple in the same way again.
Yur emailed voicemails could be compressed much more tightly if they were in MP3 or OGG rather than .wav format, right?
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Yes, I recently searched for Katz's stories and found none in the last few months.
:-).
I miss the flames he was getting
> # XML (Extended Markup Language)
>
> Um, I didn't read the article, but that's wrong.
Yes, but why nitpick Extended versus Extensible when the whole
point of the sentence is dubious?
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
My Boss made me take off my speakers becouse he felt I could do my job.
Most of the time offices use recognisable out of box consummer pcs with the bundled speakers ripped off.
I like e voice mail but I supose if someone were to BS me I'd stuff his phone number in the spam filter and set up a folder for my GF and one for famally and one for the boss.
I'd like it if you could filter based on whay they say.
"Congradulations Mr Jeffery" ZAP
"You could save" zap
"Our research indicates your a sucker" zap
and smart zap
"yadda yadda" click on "change topic button
"bs bs bs" zap it again
"Well I guess I had nothing important to say" click never take his calls again.
I don't actually exist.
A "Brave New World" Order, complete with ....
Soma!
1. 300dpi surround flat-panel
2. Spam filter for my hearing aid.
Specifically, I do not want to hear
cow-orkers make the following noises out of their mouths:
- raccous laughter
- inane whistling and sighing
- and the reason for that is umm.. ummmm..
- if you could just attach that TPS report cover, ummm... that would be great...
Real programmers don't draw flowcharts. Flowcharts are, after all, the
illiterate's form of documentation. Cavemen drew flowcharts; look how
much good it did them.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...