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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."
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.
Has any one read 1984?
"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]
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.
Though it might be an improvement.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
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.
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.
Prefences->Homepage->Exclude Stories from Homepage->Topics: Microsoft. Theres also a filter for JonKatz if anyone out there doesn't already have it checked.
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.
Surround sound could help...
If I could get the MS Paperclip to speak at me from all directions, I think I could be even more productive at work.
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...
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$
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
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?
They don't have to get it - they have the resources and the drive to catch the horse *after* it has bolted. A prime example of this is IE, whose early versions were truely aweful but is now the best browser on the market (though Mozilla is real close, maybe even better*).
Another example is DirectX - they kept plugging away at it. Now it has surpassed OpenGL in terms of functionality and is the place where new technologies appear first.
Another example will be the Xbox. If Sony, et al are grinning now then they won't when XboxII comes out.
Microsoft can afford to play follow the leader - they have the money and the bloody minded resove to catch up from the rear.
* - haven't tried 1.1 or 1.2a yet
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 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.
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!
The first part of this article reminded me remarkably of when I was a summer student at Apple. Almost all the developers had multiple monitors, usually one big one and one or more smaller ones on book shelves to one side or the other. Some people had sound effects turned on so windows closing and such made a noise. One of the hot things that got passed around was a little utility that allowed the mouse and keyboard to be shared across machines. The people in the next office over were using speech to control their computers, which was kind of annoying to listen to. There were a few videos being sent around in emails.
So when did this all happen?
1992.
That's what I find so fascinating about the whole MS thing - by and large, they're a bunch of highly effective morons. Obviously, there are some very intelligent coders in there (there'd have to be to get that mess known as windows to run on anything), but by and large their strategy is totally reactionary, and all they seem to know how to do is totally whack competitors. Nothing original or useful.
Yet look at their position in the market. I find it incredible.
-- james
> ... the pen copy and paste from computer to computer is interesting.
... What they describe requires the computers to be next to each other. With my X-windows screen I regularly use a mouse and copy-and-paste to transfer stuff between apps on computers hundreds or thousands of miles apart. I've been doing that for 15 years or so, and it doesn't seem like anything special.
Hmmm
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
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.
And email is the only thing that really caught on........
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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.
Microsoft can afford to play follow the leader - they have the money and the bloody minded resove to catch up from the rear.
They prefer to do it this way - because it's much harder to shaft people from in front.
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
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
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!"
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.
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