

Microsoft's ’90s vision for the smart home looks a lot like today [video] - cryptoz
http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/8/5790798/microsoft-1999-vision-of-the-smart-home

======
warfangle
It's like they got the concepts right, but the execution extraordinarily
wrong.

I'm pretty glad I don't have a house that yells "COOKING PERIOD IS OVER" at me
while flashing the text in bright red letters on my TV when dinner is ready.

~~~
extrahoad
I'll counter and say I think they got everything right, including execution. I
just think you're ignoring the cultural context.

If you went back to the 90's and showed a concept video featuring pervasive
personalization based on data mining, no-UI uis, and things that just work,
people would see fever dreams at best and unwholesome value-destroying
privacy-invading witchcraft at worst, the brand of which informed science
fiction of the time.

I don't think the iPhone would have sold back then. But if you gave them the
flashy stuff in this concept video, Microsoft would have been Google and Apple
combined.

~~~
csixty4
> people would see fever dreams at best and unwholesome value-destroying
> privacy-invading witchcraft at worst

Oh yes. The hacker subculture, even parts of the tech industry in general at
the time was dealing with things like the Clipper Chip, the V-Chip, and
Operation Sundevil. There was a love of tech, but a good dose of distrust as
well.

There was also a certain aesthetic to 90s tech. It needed to be obnoxious and
tech-looking. Well, everything needed to be obnoxious & in-your-face in the
90s.

------
rlu
These are always fun to watch. Here's one of Apple's versions if you're
curious:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bjve67p33E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bjve67p33E)

Microsoft still maintains its "home of the future". I think they update it
every 3-5 years or so. Here's a newer one I found on youtube:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vsoBsgqoEg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vsoBsgqoEg).
It's pretty funny to see how the set, from what I can tell, is basically
identical.

And here's another Microsoft video about the "future of productivity" made
back in 2011:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cNdhOKwi0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cNdhOKwi0)

------
WWLink
lol the piano with the computer built into it.

It's funny how for the most part, houses haven't got any of that stuff. I'm in
a house that was built in 2008, and it has something like 5 RJ45 jacks, none
of which are in particularly good locations for anything except maybe hooking
up a TV.

Most smart home things have fallen flat on their faces. About the only 2
things that have come together are smartphones, and that kid using the
computer at the piano would have been using a tablet instead. The connected TV
thing barely works, if at all.

------
zachlipton
I remember visiting a walk-through of this house back in the day here in SF.
Amazing how so much of it has come to fruition, yet Microsoft has been
responsible for so little of it.

------
lgleason
I liked that the first item on the shopping list is paint thinner :)

------
darksim905
First time I've ever heard of HealthVault (second video). Very interesting
portion of the whole video. Unique service.

------
totoroisalive
It bothers me a bit, the amount of time the woman is in the kitchen

------
noonespecial
All of that is just the answer to the question "what if there was a ubiquitous
wireless network?".

Once you've got that network, its just an art project. No wonder Apple won.

------
mantrax5
"You know, one of the things that really hurt Apple was after I left John
Sculley got a very serious disease. It’s the disease of thinking that a really
great idea is 90% of the work. And if you just tell all these other people
“here’s this great idea,” then of course they can go off and make it happen.

And the problem with that is that there’s just a tremendous amount of
craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product. And as you evolve
that great idea, it changes and grows. It never comes out like it starts
because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties of it. And you
also find there are tremendous tradeoffs that you have to make. There are just
certain things you can’t make electrons do. There are certain things you can’t
make plastic do. Or glass do. Or factories do. Or robots do.

Designing a product is keeping five thousand things in your brain and fitting
them all together in new and different ways to get what you want. And every
day you discover something new that is a new problem or a new opportunity to
fit these things together a little differently.

And it’s that process that is the magic."

~ Steve Jobs

This is why Apple doesn't make "vision" videos now, and it didn't during the
Jobs years. During the period they did, they had serious problems in shipping
any of the visions they have shown the world.

Microsoft is a bit like that. They know where the world is going, and Bill
Gates himself knew from the very start where the world is going (short of a
brief period where he conveniently ignored the Internet will happen). But they
thought the fact they knew, that they had this cool idea and projection of how
things will happen was giving them enough advantage. Nope.

It's risk-free to ship vision videos. They're like free T-shirts. There's
infinite demand. But when it comes to shipping products based on them, most
people can't live with the compromises and risk-taking a real product requires
in order to ship.

With a new product you can't just look at the competition and confirm that
what you have will work. You're on your own. Do you have the guts?

