Comments on: Microsoft’s Future Vision: Immersive, 3D, and Surface-Deep http://dusanwriter.com/index.php/2008/10/01/microsofts-future-vision-immersive-3d-and-surface-deep/ Virtual worlds and creativity, business, collaboration, and identity. Sat, 02 Jul 2011 20:45:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Peter Quirk http://dusanwriter.com/index.php/2008/10/01/microsofts-future-vision-immersive-3d-and-surface-deep/comment-page-1/#comment-19677 Peter Quirk Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:47:54 +0000 http://dusanwriter.com/?p=962#comment-19677 There's another interesting interview with Craig Mundie by the Wharton School at http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2060 It doesn't mention that Microsoft is getting into virtual worlds, but does emphasis the focus on long-term investments and tapping into the research labs. There’s another interesting interview with Craig Mundie by the Wharton School at http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2060

It doesn’t mention that Microsoft is getting into virtual worlds, but does emphasis the focus on long-term investments and tapping into the research labs.

]]> By: Peter Quirk http://dusanwriter.com/index.php/2008/10/01/microsofts-future-vision-immersive-3d-and-surface-deep/comment-page-1/#comment-19656 Peter Quirk Thu, 02 Oct 2008 01:25:42 +0000 http://dusanwriter.com/?p=962#comment-19656 It doesn't surprise me at all that Microsoft is starting to put together a cohesive story about the immersive internet. The vision described above pulls together threads that have been in the works for over a decade. With an incredibly strong background in games, MMOs, cartography, very large databases, scale-out server farms, avatars (Microsoft Agent, the infamous "clippy", game charaters, etc.), smart music composition (Microsoft Music Producer), social networking (much of this in MSR Labs), streaming media on a large scale, face recognition, lip-reading, haptic interfaces, flight simulators, train simulators, extraction of 3D information from 2D phtography, high performance computing (parallel computing), mobile interfaces, voice recognition, VoIP, robotics, scripting languages, and software development & packaging, they're pretty well situated to deliver a comprehensive solution. It doesn’t surprise me at all that Microsoft is starting to put together a cohesive story about the immersive internet. The vision described above pulls together threads that have been in the works for over a decade. With an incredibly strong background in games, MMOs, cartography, very large databases, scale-out server farms, avatars (Microsoft Agent, the infamous “clippy”, game charaters, etc.), smart music composition (Microsoft Music Producer), social networking (much of this in MSR Labs), streaming media on a large scale, face recognition, lip-reading, haptic interfaces, flight simulators, train simulators, extraction of 3D information from 2D phtography, high performance computing (parallel computing), mobile interfaces, voice recognition, VoIP, robotics, scripting languages, and software development & packaging, they’re pretty well situated to deliver a comprehensive solution.

]]> By: radar http://dusanwriter.com/index.php/2008/10/01/microsofts-future-vision-immersive-3d-and-surface-deep/comment-page-1/#comment-19645 radar Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:38:05 +0000 http://dusanwriter.com/?p=962#comment-19645 It's really hard to hold my tongue with regards to any notion of Microsoft being a top leader in any innovative new segment of the computing industry, frankly. They talk the talk, but rarely do they walk the walk with anything outside of what they've been doing for the last thousand years. The people who really get how 3d will/should be used won't be the mainstay computer OS types, IMO. A lot of the scenarios for 3d business use are too "weighty"... honestly, I can't log into SL for less than 20 minutes. You have a load a program, log in... get the whole IM and notice thing... it just takes too long. If 3d really has a place in business software (and I'm not sure it's not a case of everything looking like a nail) it needs to be lightweight and quick to use. Not something you have to feel like you're logging into. It's a hard distinction to express in an understandable way, but it's like the difference between logging into SL and getting something done vs. using twitter or blogging something real quick. The barrier to jumping into SL to do something quick is higher just because of the minimum time involved. It’s really hard to hold my tongue with regards to any notion of Microsoft being a top leader in any innovative new segment of the computing industry, frankly. They talk the talk, but rarely do they walk the walk with anything outside of what they’ve been doing for the last thousand years.

The people who really get how 3d will/should be used won’t be the mainstay computer OS types, IMO. A lot of the scenarios for 3d business use are too “weighty”… honestly, I can’t log into SL for less than 20 minutes. You have a load a program, log in… get the whole IM and notice thing… it just takes too long. If 3d really has a place in business software (and I’m not sure it’s not a case of everything looking like a nail) it needs to be lightweight and quick to use. Not something you have to feel like you’re logging into.

It’s a hard distinction to express in an understandable way, but it’s like the difference between logging into SL and getting something done vs. using twitter or blogging something real quick. The barrier to jumping into SL to do something quick is higher just because of the minimum time involved.

]]> By: Erica Driver http://dusanwriter.com/index.php/2008/10/01/microsofts-future-vision-immersive-3d-and-surface-deep/comment-page-1/#comment-19644 Erica Driver Wed, 01 Oct 2008 12:43:33 +0000 http://dusanwriter.com/?p=962#comment-19644 Dusan: I agree that MSFT has some interesting things going on with regard to immersive technology. My take: don’t expect Microsoft’s information worker division to aggressively embrace the Immersive Internet. Rather, this division is likely to sit back for a while to see how the Immersive Internet develops, and then get in the game. For information workers, Microsoft may move in the direction of integrating Virtual Earth with the company’s collaboration and social computing products. Virtual Earth already integrates with Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 for business data visualization. Imagine if: Microsoft went further and Virtual Earth was integrated with Outlook and Exchange Server and Office Communicator and Communications Server so you could zoom in on any address in your contacts database or buddy list, or in an email signature, and get directions and a 3D image of the location. Take it even further and picture yourself inviting a professional contact to come and meet you in the virtual park outside your virtual office in Virtual Earth, where your avatars sit on a bench together while you IM or talk via voice about, say, an upcoming business trip. Give it five years and this style of communication and collaboration will be commonplace. And Microsoft will likely be one of the vendors delivering it. Here's a link to an article I wrote about this in July titled "My take on Microsoft's Immersive Internet play for information workers" (http://tinyurl.com/56p6pf). Erica Driver, Principal, ThinkBalm Dusan: I agree that MSFT has some interesting things going on with regard to immersive technology. My take: don’t expect Microsoft’s information worker division to aggressively embrace the Immersive Internet. Rather, this division is likely to sit back for a while to see how the Immersive Internet develops, and then get in the game. For information workers, Microsoft may move in the direction of integrating Virtual Earth with the company’s collaboration and social computing products. Virtual Earth already integrates with Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 for business data visualization. Imagine if: Microsoft went further and Virtual Earth was integrated with Outlook and Exchange Server and Office Communicator and Communications Server so you could zoom in on any address in your contacts database or buddy list, or in an email signature, and get directions and a 3D image of the location. Take it even further and picture yourself inviting a professional contact to come and meet you in the virtual park outside your virtual office in Virtual Earth, where your avatars sit on a bench together while you IM or talk via voice about, say, an upcoming business trip. Give it five years and this style of communication and collaboration will be commonplace. And Microsoft will likely be one of the vendors delivering it. Here’s a link to an article I wrote about this in July titled “My take on Microsoft’s Immersive Internet play for information workers” (http://tinyurl.com/56p6pf).

Erica Driver, Principal, ThinkBalm

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