Microsoft Center gives a peek into the future

Microsoft on Thursday opened on its Redmond campus, the Center for Information Work (CIW), which houses prototypes of potential productivity technologies of the future.

Microsoft, working with center partners Sony, Intel and Acer, is running numerous prototypes of software and systems that could hit the market within five years. Prototype technologies from Microsoft Research currently at the Center include BroadBench, a display with a screen 44-inches wide by 11-inches high.

This display would probably cost around $10,000 today, but the price would be a lot lower if hundreds of thousands of them were built, said Gary Starkweather, an architect for Microsoft Research and the developer of BroadBench.

"There has been enormous enthusiasm for the product from people like operations managers who want to put a whole lot of servers or functional modules on the screen so they can have an operator watch what's going on with their network," he said.

Other interesting features of the CIW, is located in another room, where sits a large boardroom table with a large screen and a new device known as the RingCam, an omnidirectional video camera that can record a 360-degree view of a room. It is voice-activated and, Microsoft hopes, will one day significantly affect how professionals participate in and archive meetings while away from the office.

Off the boardroom is a room with a mock car dashboard, again used to show how the data and technologies transfer, as well as an airplane seat with a kiosk of the future that will give users access to all the same information.

Thomas Gruver, group marketing manager for the center says he expects some 1,000 customers to tour the center each month. Microsoft will collect feedback from these visitors and use it to guide which technologies to move toward reality and which need refining to better address real business problems customers face.

News source: eWeek