Hey, want to know what the future looks like? Okay, how about what Microsoft thinks the future will look like? If you're still reading, Stephen Elop, Microsoft's Business Division President, recently presented that vision as part of this year's
TechFest. In an embedded video below you can get a glimpse, which includes plenty of augmented reality, a personal identification device that could (finally) replace your wallet, and naturally lots and lots of
Surface action -- extending from tables to walls and beyond. Some of these conceptual clips are old, but overall it looks like something of a computing utopia to us, and according to Elop these are all representative of currently active projects. But, with the company
shedding employees and surely focusing on tangible revenue
right now, we're wondering how long they'll stay that way.
<![CDATA[&amp;lt;a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-GB&amp;amp;playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:a517b260-bb6b-48b9-87ac-8e2743a28ec5&amp;amp;showPlaylist=true&amp;amp;from=shared" target="_new" title="Future Vision Montage"&amp;gt;Video: Future Vision Montage&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;]]>
posted Mar 2nd 2009 9:44AM
That's a very genuine Microsoft "Windows"
The technology exist today though somehow I'm not impressed by Microsoft take on the future. Where's the hover car? =D
But does it blend?
The future is mobile and portable, not nailed to the wall.
MS continues to be a failboat.
"""The future is mobile and portable, not nailed to the wall.
MS continues to be a failboat."""
There were plenty of mobile devices in the video...
What are you talking about, half of the devices they showed where portable. The only things that weren't are the things that make sense to have nailed down; the classroom "blackboard", office desk, home TV or the hospital screen.
^
^
Watch the clip before comment please.
@ Gibson ...
What kind of job do you have where you can live on just a mobile device? Some of us do need a lot of space to work on process flows and design documentation. And why strain your eyes at a 4" screen when you can have an entire wall to use?
What a cool future... If only Windows worked as advertised!!!
Here's to hoping that 7 is all what's supposed to be but somehow cheaper than Vista!
Why do you need chalkboards/presentation boards if you have touchscreen desks that can display your own personal copy of what the teacher is going over? The kids could even put their answers on their screen which the teacher could see and shift the class to learn why the answer is the way it is if most of the class is having a hard time with it.
windows always works as advertised. oh and you wont be dissapointed with 7, its a good advancement.
its just those people who interpret ad's wrongly, and on top of that cant figure out how to do something with thier computer.
talking about ads, dont you love the photo gallery ad where the little girl goes like "I'm 4 and a half and I'm a PC"
and ps. if microsoft can do even the smallest bit in making this future a reality,
I for one, open heartedly welcome our new coroporate overlords
Life without walls?
because in teh future, ur walls will be made of glass computers....
no - thsi was actually sick sweet. I'd say this could hit buisnesses/ upperlevel communities by like 2024.
Needs moar touch
needs moar pooper
This video is a lot better than some of the other videos Microsoft has released. Case in point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPv8PPl7ANU
lmao...
P.A.C Man I know you are an idiot but that was a funny video. I guess the make them on purpose to sound stupid and look stupid...
Damn, that music is really tight. In my near future, I would like to know where I could get it and more.
In the future you will find that tune when you access your Mac computer and sing it the song to iTunes.
I'm liking the music too!
You can already find out the song just by using the shazam app on your iPhone.
Ziad, I do not have a iphone (Verizon customer) so that doesn't really help now does it.
You are in luck!
http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2007/05/23/verizon-launches-vcast-song-id/
Yeah and we are saw Minority Report too. Good job seeing that movie Microsoft.
Other than the drawing board everything appeared to be controlled by tablets and direct input on devices.
So what?? You sayin' you don't want this? If not, STFU
Rent the movie and listen to the directors commentary. Spielberg mentions Microsoft and the researcher that consulted wiht themduring the first pre-cog scene.
I just kept watching out for Anne Lively, she never came
that would be pretty cool
I like the way they show everything connected. That view they showed where it displays exactly where a person is in their home was more google, but still funny.
Looks like some cool tech though.
Why does Engadget constantly feel the need to bash Microsoft. This story could have easily been reported without digs such as
"Okay, how about what Microsoft thinks the future will look like? If you're still reading,...". I like this site a lot but all the fanboyish behavior has really got to stop. The video is very cool, and I'm sure if Apple produced it there would have been a completely different summary.
Blog ≠ professional, unbiased news
Therefore: Opinions and digs are allowed.
Humour is optional, that goes for the comment fish market.
if you don't think that video was cool or at the very least interesting, you're a liar...i really don't understand why Tim Stevens wrote about it so negatively, if the future turns out like this it'd be incredible.
I'm not sure you can call the article "Microsoft bashing". Seems pretty on-point to me. Not everyone wants to know what Microsoft thinks the future will look like since it no doubt involves their products heavily (accept this as fact and move on). Equally, find me a company today that isn't focused on projects that deliver revenue quickly - this is just an economic fact of life that is making my own job more difficult than it used to be (i.e. chasing funding). Crickey, the article praises some of the concepts shown...
People need to develop some thicker skin around here.
What I really want to see is apple's version of the future.
Brushed aluminum everything, very expensive, everything is preceded by the letter 'i' and typeset in some cool Web 2.0 font.
Yeah, that's innovation.
My respect for apple would more than triple if they dropped the 'i' before their products.
So we'd have the Apple Mac -- that works, sort of.
But the Apple Pod? What the heck is that?! I'm envisioning a sort of James-and-the-Giant-Peach contraption...
I hardly noticed any Microsoft bashing. He explained the video exactly how it is; conceptual, non-beneficial crap that we've seen in thousands of college portfolios before.
The difference is MS renders it and doesn't ship it; AAPL doesn't talk about it‚ then drops it on people. Personally‚ I'd prefer the latter.
microsoft has shipped a lot of things in the past.
seriously, all of us here know, that if it wasn't for microsoft all of us would be being screwd over much worse by apple. if apple had the monopoly instead of microsoft... computers wouldn't be in every household right now. and neither would they be so innovative or ever changing. im not saying that apple isnt an innovative company. im just saying that in fields where it doenst need to,
it will not innovate. the ipod before the iTouch was proof of this.
seriously, i think before engadget stops.. all the commenters have to stop icrosoft bashing.
especially because most of them are doing it from a microsoft operating system anyways.
"I have seen our future, and all I can say is....go back."
Everyone knows nobody will wear "shirts" in the future. Nice try, MS...come again when you get your model outfitted in proper future attire.
"If you're still reading?'
I can imagine this iTart thumping that away on his rinky dinky iKeyboard straining his lil brain trying to be funny. Techfest was great but you guys wouldn't know anything about that. Instead we have to get what really is cool clip filtered through some Engadget writer who's tech education begins and ends at the Apple store.
Actually, the author of this post doesn't own a single Apple product.
Kay, stop complaining and leave. Every view helps drive revenue and therefore they'll do more of this stuff in the future, possibly with even more digs. Woohoo.
Seriously, did someone kick your dog or something? Or were you just born without a humour?
exactly
that exactly was in support of neha
I love the idea of projecting a layer of virtual reality of every available physical surface.
Reminds me of the anime "Dennou Coil", except without the VR glasses.
But then who would want to wear VR glasses all the time... but then again I wear regular glasses all the time.
Or maybe with Surface, we can do away with the glasses part anyway.
I know what you mean. Dennou Coil was awesome.
Though I don't really like the idea of my boss catching what pr0n Im watching at work.
:P
Or what about posting your companies most secure documents on the glass wall so anyone with a telescope can see your business plan.
finally no bezels...
geez yes, that's the most awesome part i noticed. I hate bezels.
I thought the single coolest part was the touch-screen borderless card wallet. Very cool since I really hate how bulky my wallet is having to hold a buncha IDs, a bank card, credit card, license, health insurance card, farecard, etc.
Would love to have some sort of programmable RFID-type thing in that device where whichever card you selected would be the active RFID signature, so you could still use your card to unlock doors or take a train or whatever.
Also the shopping list that automatically reconfigured to the optimal shopping order in the store is genius...would be cool if you could walk into a store, it'd automatically download the location data to your phone and make an optimal purchasing route. Of course, this will never, ever, happen because stores want you to wander around lost so you buy all kinds of random impulse crap.
Well, I thought the video was really cool.
ditto
Not bloody likely.
lame.
i rather be plugged into "the matrix!" use whatever interface my mind comes up with :-D
where are the batteries?
Having seen the current prototypes for this sort of stuff, I have to say it's rather an expectation on their part than more so than a hyphotetical future - very cool. As for the unbiased reporting... *sigh*
"on their part more so than a" - grammar check
I think that is a possibility but its a few years off
The economy may be bad, but a company can dream, can't it Engadget? After all, dreams are all we have right now
She's totally forgetting beer and eggs.. way to use that technology..
I'd love to see even 10% of this come to fruition before I'm in the ground.
A lot of what they showed is already here. Surface powered much of the technology. They just need to shrink down hardware (which they already have made great strides in doing in just the past few years).
I mean seeing use in everyday life, as portrayed in the video.
it is supposed to be the future, where is the plasma lamp?
apparently Blue Sage is going to be a hot commodity in the future!
tactile input mechanism is sooo last gen, right microsoft?
DO WANT it all!!!!
I thought it was funny how the "wallet of the future" was on a key ring that still had old-school keys on it. lulz
yay... now I can't wait for my house to crash and have to wait 5 minutes to reboot it. OMG and can you imagine the blue screen of death in the future. It will be everywhere and the suicide rate will be up on the rise.
Aww my Dog just got another BSOD, imagine cyborgs with a BsoD xD
why aren't the people of the future wearing shiny silver unitards and robotic helmets??
why aren't they marching around in unison like drones??
that's not the future i was brought up to believe in..... :(
2084 is not going to be like... 2084...
ROBOTRON: 2084
It's admittedly cool. The one item which screams 'FAIL' is the bit of tech to replace your wallet. That one's a head scratcher. Why would somebody replace an inexpensive piece of leather, nylon or what have you with a gadget that'll be pricey, runs software, will be fragile and will odds on have a built in irreplaceable battery? Let's see: $20 vs. $200+
In the next ten years, flexible, thin, touch sensitive displays will drop significantly in price. To the point that a card like the one in the video could be produced at the same costs as a decent wallet, maybe even the cost of Chip-n-Pin/RFID cards today.
Oh, I get it!! Apple is getting into the wallet business! gotcha...
iWallet?
o_0
Lost or stolen might be a little less of a headache... :)
And 30 years from now who knows if leather will be a more rare comodity than cilicone or whatever material this is made of. That comment really has no basis at this point. That's the same attitude of the people who don't want to replace gasoline with some other form of energy.
actually, im pretty sure the whole demographic of this site liked the wallet as one of the top 3 innovations in that video.
Funny, you don't really see anyone in the video doing work that produces something. Rather, they're mostly just looking at data or drawing stuff. Put another way, I suspect that in the future I'll be producing reports and documentation in pretty much the same was as I am doing so today. Which is all rather depressing...
"Funny, you don't really see anyone in the video doing work that produces..."
I've a feeling that these ads and pictures depict another Country. America is going to be the world's labor pool. You can't use "Surface" to flip burgers and sweep floors.
That's sort of the problem with the economy right now and going forward, isn't it? The U.S. doesn't really produce anything anymore. We've become a nation of document/paper shufflers. Aside from the small percentage, in the single digits, of people who work on design and intellectual property, that leaves 90% who are glorified customer service reps.
@Wodheila Jackass, what are you talking about?
It had a section where someone was assembling an engine with a digital overlay of the part connections. Cool manufacturing application
Moral of the story, we still have to do the bloody dishes...
So is this why Microsoft can not make a decent mobile device? Perhaps they should wake up and start engineering solutions, not movies.
You do realize that there are more than just a few people working there, right? Not all of their resources are directed towards a single project.
Definitely photoshopped, the reflections are all wrong.
And you thought otherwise why?
@Game_playa:
http://xkcd.com/331/
during recessions / depressions is where you will begin to see new ventures starting up and more people finding ways to do the same thing easier and cheaper (ie electronic wallet). There will be a lot of cool things popping up soon due to the bad economic level of the United States.
on a side note.. .MS if you have time to do this movie, you should have to time to fix bug #'s 1-9382.3^12 in windows.
we are still far from that kind of technology. what we need need is a technology that will accommodate all kind of people not well offs
It looks like several devices doing similar things. Personally I think it should be one device foldable and expandable to be able to do the whole kit n kaboodle....... Like the Pip-boy..... Pretty much all you need.
Is there an option to filter out ignorant comments?
"Thank you for calling Microsoft support. How may I assist you?"
"Yeah my uhh car got a blue screen..." =D
neat ...but they seem to be having a hard time keeping up with their Windows Mobile UI, let alone doing some of the fancy stuff their showing in the video.
if this was a video by apple:
"so i was sucking on job's dick the other day...."
but since this is a microsoft video:
"its sort of meh..."
Wait...other people suck on his dick too?
...I don't think the $10 he pays me is going to cut it anymore.
Foreseeable future?.... This forseeable Microsoft future will come at our expense.Expenses we pay them one small upgrade after another.