On Tuesday, as part of the Dean’s Lecture Series, Microsoft’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie demonstrates a virtual persona based teleconferencing technology known as Avatar Kinect which was announced at CES 2011 earlier this year.
This public demonstration was the second in Australia after the Melbourne event a day before, and was in attendance of over 300 people in Sydney, a hundred more than the first.
The lecture focused on next generation computer human interaction interaction “Natural User Interfaces” (NUI), set to expand the possibilities of sterile computer control in the operating theatre, remote virtual gaming and a virtual receptionist. Natural user interfaces is set to remove the learning curve from today’s user interfaces, taking advantage of metaphors from the physical world.
Craig explains that while the step from telephone was to television, the next step is telepresence. I think that the use of an avatar is a great step forward, especially since many of today’s users are already comfortable with taking upon an online persona through many of the video games available today.
Microsoft Research have been rather active in NUI development, and many of its work could be found found explained in quite simple terms at MSDN ‘s Channel9 since TechFest 2010.
Just got this email announcing discontinuation of Popfly:
I’m writing to thank you for registering and using Microsoft Popfly. I’ve been fortunate enough to see all the innovative mashups, Web pages, and games created by the Popfly community since we launched Popfly two years ago. It has truly been a pleasure to watch the spirit of creativity flow through a growing Popfly community over the life of the product.
It’s with a heavy heart that I share some news with you today: on August 24, 2009, the Popfly service will be discontinued and all sites, references, and resources will be taken down.
After August 24th, your access to your Popfly account, including any games and mashups that you’ve created, will be discontinued. However, Microsoft is still very much dedicated to helping you express your creativity and pursuing a path to software development. If you’re interested in refining your skills in Web applications, please visit Microsoft Web Platform Installer. For those interested in programming on the Xbox, then please visit Microsoft XNA or Microsoft Kodu. And for those who are interested in Windows programming, please visit Microsoft Express.
Thanks again for your support and please don’t hesitate to contact us at popfly@microsoft.com if you have any questions.
In such times of the global financial crisis, Microsoft shuffles its internals and is reorganising itself (at the same time saying goodbye to some of its employees). But, business as usual, Microsoft Redmond is still hiring new talent from Australia.
It’s true. Their international recruiting team sent me a flyer about the 3 month SDE/SDET internship at the end of the year. But remember, application closes 22 Jul 09 – that’s less than 3 weeks away!
It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to work for a company of such scale. And note, this is not an internship with Microsoft Australia, it’s with Microsoft in the US! It means you get to go over there, all relocation expenses paid for, etc. It’s worth trying for.
Just received an email from the ICT guys at Sydney Uni – all students are getting a new email service! According to ICT Switch, the email service is going to be the new hosted services from Microsoft, called Outlook Live. It means that there’s finally a decent user interface to the university email, plus seamless Outlook integration!
This is great new, because unlike Hotmail (or Windows Live Mail), hosted Outlook services are Ad-Free! Or so I hope. Which means, we’ll be getting the best email services without the unnecessary advertising. Also, we’ll be able to keep the email address even after leaving uni, which is absolutely awesome. It’s a good thing that it means the uni doesn’t have to manage (and pay for) the mail services even for students whom have left.
The only issue is, I’d have to change my uni email address, and changing emails addresses is never fun. Thank goodness that I can keep this email address forever.
I tried to log onto my new email account today at https://www.outlook.com/, but it appears that it hasn’t been activated yet. Can’t wait until it kicks off on 6 May 09!
This public demonstration was the second in Australia after the Melbourne event a day before, and was in attendance of over 300 people in Sydney, a hundred more than the first.
Events, Microsoft | Edmund Tse | 
31 Mar 2011 01:20 | 
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