Microsoft Research Projects Showcased

prostoalex writes "Seattle Times reporter visited the Microsoft Research expo hosted by the company. The inventions of the future include a robot that could attend conferences in your behalf and allow you to communicate via video and audio applications, a software package that translates the sign language into readable English, e-mailable identification documents and some enhancements to Microsoft's operating systems."

Comments

Politics as usual?

[Anonymous Coward]

a robot that could attend conferences in your behalf

I thought we had prior art on this one - in the form of the US Senate.

Re:Politics as usual?

[DigiShaman]

Ohh, that's so cold. But hey, nobody ever said you had to like the truth.

Robot Uses

[inertia187]

a robot that could attend conferences in your behalf

Great way to save on air travel. Shipping has to be cheaper. But why stop at conferences? Some other ideas:

• Have a robot attend your acquaintance's wedding.
  
• Save on sick days, have the robot show up to work.
  
• Stash one at the co-location facility, have Tweekie take care of those pesky reboots and upgrades.
  
• Send one to your local polling place when it's time to vote. Let them sort it out.
  
• Have it wait in line for the next Star Wars Episode. Then have it see the movie. Do you really think the plot will be more interesting if you go yourself?

Re:Robot Uses

[Henry Pate]

I think slashdotters a missing a big use of this new Robo-conference technology. This is one of the first chances to see the BSOD in action. I can imagine it now, the presenter takes the stage to begin the presentation, only to be interrupted by 200 mini-robots falling out of line, dropping to the floor and yelling "Access violation at XXXX:XXXX" in a sort of monotone gurgling voice, hours of fun for the linux geeks, and it never gets old.

MS style innovation....

[sould]

People waiting to take an elevator could enter their destination floor into a cellphone instead of pushing the elevator button,

Wow! I cant wait - Imagine the incovenience of reaching out and pressing a button replaced with patting all your pockets down searching for a phone, pulling it out, typing in your pin code to unlock it and....still pressing a button.

Yup. Sounds like Microsoft style innovation to me.

Re:MS style innovation....

[MrLint]

The Sirius Cybernetics corporation is please to announce elevators tat can see into the near future, they know when you are going to need an elevator and which floor you want to go to because its already seen itself drop you off.

*NOW WITH GPP! Genuine People Personalities!

Huh?

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

and some enhancements to Microsoft's operating systems

Such as security and stability? That would sure be nice.

Dear prostoalex

[josh crawley]

Thank you for the useful link to this page detailing Microsoft's operating systems. Without your help I would be left wondering: "What operating systems does this Microsoft company make? Do they make the Lunix?"

Again, thank you.

Just to stay on-topic, the meeting robot reminds me of an anecdote by Richard Feynman I believe, where he was talking to a Danish princess after winning the Nobel Prize. Noticing all the people shaking hands at the event, he mused about a "hand-shaking robot" to save time and hand fatigue. He then further postulated that if one person had a hand-shaking robot, all the other hand-shakers would want one too, so at ceremonies such as the Nobel Prize Awarding, one dignitary would send his robot to go shake all the other robot hands waiting in a line.

I'm visualizing 10 robots sitting at a conference table, while the whole board of directors is sitting at home, naked, drinking their morning coffee, etc.

Re:Dear prostoalex

[core plexus]

"while the whole board of directors is sitting at home, naked, drinking their morning coffee, etc."

dear god i wish that mental image had never popped into my head, worsened by the "etc." part.

-cp-

Don't worry.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Slashdot. No one reads the articles.

WTF? Bowls?

[joelt49]

Some of the more unusual projects were developed by students Microsoft invited to participate in the research fair. Students from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands presented the idea of parents keeping in touch with grown children through special bowls with digital cameras in them.

A child could come home and put his keys in the bowl, which would take a picture of the keys and send the image to the parents' bowl. Parents could look into their bowls and feel comforted that their child is home safe.
(Emphasis added)

I think the title says it all. I mean, BOWLS? Who the hell is on crack at MS (besides the MS Software Security and Ethics divisions, if they even exist)? Excuse me, but why would looking at a picture of keys make a parent feel more comfortable? Me, I'd prefer see the actual child. This is one invention destined to fail.

Unlimited fun for pranksters

[Nice2Cats]

The convenience is for pranksters, not for the people who actually want to use the elevator. Now instead of running down the stairs and pressing the buttons as you go along to force the elevator to open the door on every floor, you the teenage prankster can sit in the lobby -- hell, he or she can sit in the lobby of the next building -- and with your cellphone, send that elevator randomly from one floor to the next.

Now, for real fun, get a list of elevator numbers in your financial district and have your computer dial those numbers. The challenge to you and every other hacker in the city is to get all of the elevators in the basement at the same time. You get extra points for every CEO who misses a meeting because he is stuck in the cabin next to the heating room...

Oh, to be young again...