Geoff Spick03 March 2009, 9:30 AM
Wonder what tech will be like in 10 years' time? Microsoft has produced a handy video to show you how.
The video, from a recent company presentation at the Wharton Business Technology Conference, shows how Microsoft thinks we might interact with information
and the computer in a decade from now.
In the first scene, children draw on plain glass in a logical take from
the currently-prototype 'surface' technologies. Then a woman aboard
an airliner watches her child's progress in school using her fingers to
navigate a scarily thin laptop screen.
You'll recognise the next segment from the movie Minority
Report. as a worker drags documents around his screen, but not where he pulls
it off the screen onto his all-glass 'notebook' with a flick of the finger to
take away with him.
In the background, the time, family photos and stock charts
can be seen on the office window, which becomes an extension of today's
desktop. This is followed up by a two-piece, all-glass PDA that makes
a video phone call. Lost in a large office building, arrow mark guides on the
floor tell him where to go, while he remains connected to all his information.
There are lots of familiar elements in the video, documents, Post-it notes and a newspaper, but everything, even the coffee cup has a
display and is interactive and connected, sending finished documents around the
world, receiving news, monitoring the home and helping the worker and family of
the future go about their lives.
Fantasy it may be, for now, but in its own, slightly Disney-esque,
way the video doesn't seem to be beyond the bounds of reason for how we will receive and interact with technology in the not too distant
future.
You can view the full presentation and speech by Stephen
Elop of Microsoft's Business Division by visiting the virtual presskit at Microsoft.
What do you think?