3 posts tagged “microsoft”
LONDON, England (CNN) -- Software giant Microsoft unveiled some of its future technology at its fourth annual Innovation Day in Brussels on December 4.
And from virtual family organizers to tabletop touch-screens, their vision of the future sees technology move from the traditional desktop computer to become seamlessly integrated in all aspects of our lives.
One key area that's set to change, says Microsoft, is user interface. MD of Microsoft Research, Cambridge, Andrew Herbert told CNN, "Sitting at a keyboard with a screen in front of us is an old-fashioned view of computing. Technology is going to be around us, it's going to be much easier to use."
Developments in touch-screen technology have resulted in large screens that can be used by multiple people, creating table-top tools for collaboration at work. And along with touch-screens, voice recognition will make our interaction with computers much more natural.
Herbert told CNN, "Interactive surfaces are making it easier for people to use computers with gesture and touch. It will make it easy for people to collaborate together. Speech will be an important part of that, too."
"We'll think less of one person, one computer," he continued. "It'll be people working together in an environment with lots of computers that you can interact with."
Touch-screens will also play a role in the home, according to the Microsoft-funded "Living Tomorrow" project. They showed off a large electronic touch-screen family organizer integrated into the wall of a fridge, which included shopping lists and menus compiled from product bar codes, a family calendar and virtual sticky notes.
"..The user experience is where many of Vista's
problems emanate." 1. Vista lacks user centered innovation that benefits users directly Vista lacks innovation that benefits users directly. Aero was touted
as the new innovation for users. While it provides eye candy like a new
glassy look, see through window edges, the true benefit to end users is
lacking. We are bombarded with more and more documents, email and web
pages and applications to manage. While the Windows Explorer has
improved organization and search, very little is done to help end users
make their computer experience better or more productive. Users are
forced to hunt for common everyday tasks like adding a printer or
connecting to a wireless access point. These should be easy. Managing
multiple windows and documents on the desktop haven't been solved by
Vista. 2. Vista and Office 2007 impose a big productivity loss Relearning and unlearning familiar tasks in Vista and Office 2007 is
frustrating and infuriating end users. More casual users are likely to
give up upon being frustrated or place a call into the IT help desk.
Microsoft has suffered a big setback in understanding how to help end
users increase productivity and instead has worsened the problem. Users
are more likely to downgrade to Windows XP unless there is some
external incentive to go through the learning curve of Vista and Office. 3. Vista performance is poor Boot times to come up to a fully functional desktop are still long.
Basic file copy operations that takes seconds on XP can take minutes or
tens of minutes on Vista. Applications like Outlook freeze and going
into "Not Responding" mode with a mouse click performing a basic task.
While hardware and software in the industry continues to work faster,
Vista steps backwards and is slower. 4. Vista has a high user annoyance factor Message balloons from past Windows operating systems are still
annoying users in Vista. In many cases, cryptic messages tell users
that a "host process has stopped working". What's a user to do? User
Account Control is the equivalent of putting an automatic look on every
door inside your house, so you must use a key to enter the kitchen,
study, bedrooms or closets.
Bill Buxton, the human-computer interaction and computer graphics pioneer, joined Microsoft Research two years ago as a principle researcher two years ago to help foster a design oriented culture at Microsoft.
He is a designer and a researcher concerned
with human aspects of technology. His work reflects a particular
interest in the use of technology to support creative activities such
as design, film making and music. Buxton's research specialties include
technologies, techniques and theories of input to computers, technology
mediated human-human collaboration, and ubiquitous computing."
