Tag Archives: the future

The future of productivity… according to Microsoft

The company behind Windows has manufactured a glimpse into a future “where technology extends and highlights our productive capabilities.” The concept video, embedded above for your wonderment, includes ideas for products that take advantage of current technology (speech recognition, data visualization, etc.) and magical things that have yet to be invented like glasses that translate speech in real time and transparent refrigerator doors with data overlays. Microsoft “see[s] technology moving from a passive tool to a more active assistant, helping us get things done, and strengthening our interactions with one another.” Tap play and journey into Microsoft’s vision of the future. Spoiler: so many screens. It’s good to know that physical QWERTY keyboards will still exist in the future, right? Right?

[Via MicrosoftBlog]

Journey inside Microsoft’s Home of the future

Located on the Redmond campus, the Microsoft Home was first opened in 1994 and since then it has given private parties a glimpse into the future. Three to fifteen years into the future, to be somewhat more precise. Though the Home is closed to the public, Channel 9’s Steve Clayton was recently invited inside with a camera crew and his all-too-brief tour is available for everyone to watch in the video embedded above. Microsoft’s Flora Goldthwaite is the tour leader and she admits that the technology inside the house is at the prototype stage; though Microsoft envisions these technologies to be possible in the near future, perhaps they won’t be used the way in which the Home demonstrates them. Anyhow, all of the quick demos are intriguing to say the least. From conductive charging plates that display UIs to next-gen media centers and kid’s rooms that project incoming text messages and Twitter updates, Microsoft’s home of the future certainly tickles the imagination.

[Via Channel9]

How the decade was supposed to turn out

This commercial for Nuveen Investments aired during the Super Bowl in 2000.  It imagined a future with major advancements in the struggle against AIDS, cancer, and spinal cord injuries.  That’s right–the late Christopher Reeve makes a touching appearence when he walks onto the stage.  The ad promises “In the future, so many amazing things will happen in the world.”  Though it’s interesting to see what an investment firm envisioned for the first decade of the 2000’s, what’s even more impacting is that we still aren’t there yet.  Support your charities; we can all lend a helping hand in the fight against deadly diseases and injuries and make the world a better and safer place to live in.

[Via Gizmodo]