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Roundup of Microsoft Research At TechFest 2009
An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica has a very thorough post of some of the technologies that Microsoft researchers showed off at TechFest last week. 'The exact number of projects that were demonstrated at TechFest 2009 is not clear, but here's a quick rundown of about 35 research projects that haven't received much coverage, accompanied by links that will let you further explore if your interest is piqued. Remember that these are concepts and prototypes, not finished products, and they may never end up becoming anything significant.'" While Microsoft has been criticized for squandering a fortune on R&D, there can be no doubt that they are showing off some cool tech here.
Some might say that some of what they do is a waste, but there aren't many companies that are able to do such large scale R&D. Yeah its microsoft, but of late it seems they are trying to release sound technology and I for one am all for them being able to continue to do so even in turbulent economic times.
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
... that some of this research actually helps Microsoft in turning in to a company that derives its revenues from the fruits of its innovations rather than monopoly-based marketing hacks, and lock-ins into poorly written code.
Say what you will about Microsoft's software, Steve Ballmer, etc. - Microsoft Research does some really cool work, and its track record of supporting fundamental math/cs research (and researchers) is quite commendable.
The most interesting thing I saw is Social Desktop. Admittedly a basic idea, but oh, the power you can leverage off that... For example you could make a universal file system that you can access anywhere on top of that. It's huge.
Universal filesystem? We already got one of those. They call it FTP. It's quite nice really. You can use part or all of anyone else's filesystem with standard protocols so that means you don't need to know the details of the filesystem on that person's hard drive. Then there's NFS if you want to worry about the details of the remote filesystem. Did I mention SFTP/SCP?
It's quite rare that someone who is really impressed with a "new" technology (more like a new brand) and thinks it's HUGE and this-and-that is actually talking about something novel. Really rare. It's just trendy these days for anything using the Internet to be "social".
The problem with most of Microsoft's research is, it ends up (usually poorly) imitating a competitor that is obvious in the eyes of a consumer. Someone looks at the Zune and can immediately compare it to the iPod, Live Search to Google, MSN to AIM (or IRC, etc), and the XBox to the PS2. The flaws in all of these products were A) A late deployment (minus the case of MSN), B) No real way to make money on it (the Xbox devision only recently turned a profit), C) In-Your-Face marketing, just compare the commercials for "I'm a PC..." to Apple's recent commercials, Apple's were cleaner, simpler and got the point across, Microsoft's commercials basically stated "Hey, we are still a monopoly!", D) Bundling. Having Windows Messenger (on XP, it was the precursor to MSN messenger) pop up every single time I started Windows didn't exactly persuade me to get MSN anytime soon, neither does the fact that Windows is required for a Zune and all the other MS DRM is Windows only basically alienates me as a Linux (and sometimes OS X) user from spending money on Microsoft hardware.
I'm sure we would all be singing a different tune if MS had launched the Zune back in 2000, or if Live/MSN search had the clean, easy to use, and optimized search engine before Google, but MS didn't launch them so to most customers they look about as appealing as buying a Wal-Mart branded MP3 player when a name-brand iPod costs only a few bucks more. Sure, some will buy them, but they will see them as the "off-brand" something that I don't think MS quite realizes. The MS brand means nothing to consumers, the days where it was considered name-brand are long gone.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Apparently you didn't even read the summary right under the video. It can be used in education via webcam, where the user may not be familier with a keyboard, but still needs to input words. This could spill over to places like kiosks or embedded systems, where a keyboard is a liability towards being broken, or simply a cuttable expense. It could also work with other niches, such as providing feedback on teaching sign language, or letting a player use hand signals to communicate in squad-based shooting games.
Some might say that some of what they do is a waste, but there aren't many companies that are able to do such large scale R&D.
But that's why it is a huge waste. Not because they do it, but because they can do all this awesome R&D and yet we (the human race) really see nothing from it.
What it derives from is the fundamental reason why Microsoft funds all this R&D - to keep the people doing the R&D happy in the current-day equivalent of the Holodeck, where they can do anything they want yet nothing they do actually matters. Microsoft doesn't care, as long as what they are doing does not help other companies progress then Microsoft looks like they are not moving as slowly as they are by comparison.
It's easy to see how a situation like this can come to pass when a company has a lot of money, the directive to hire and retain smart people, yet has a corporate culture that makes bringing real products to full delivery almost impossible.
And that in the end, is the greatest crime of all. The opportunity cost of what we all have lost from these people slaving away in the golden tower from which nothing returns.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley