
Microsoft's Productivity Future Vision - sajid
http://www.microsoft.com/enterprise/productivityvision/
======
AndrewKemendo
It seems like most of the things demonstrated are changes to the gloss of
interfaces, higher resolution etc... I don't see radical "productivity"
improvements - eg. making input significantly easier through BCI. The touch
options they show are a scaled versions (larger/more ubiquitous) of what we
have now with stylus/touch input and wearables. For example, why is the big
drafting table radically better than a tablet or wacom drawing pad and large
monitor today? Saying nothing of the holographic 3D table without any HMD or
the other "sci-fi" type stuff shown.

I guess to me this looks nice and flashy and all but not really a breakthrough
in ergonomics. Maybe I missed that somewhere.

~~~
mc32
What struck me was that people were there almost as props. It was as if
technology had advanced so much (information gathering and intelligence) that
the people were more or less redundant and were 'doing things' just to act out
our newfound purpose.

Basically all the information was there and people more or less had veto power
--yes or no. I know this is just conceptualization, but they may not be that
far off.

It looks fun and would appear that people would have lots more free time to do
whatever, but for the most part things were done by machines for people.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
_It looks fun and would appear that people would have lots more free time to
do whatever, but for the most part things were done by machines for people._

Is that not the "promise of technology?" That is a world I am trying to create
- one where we work not out of necessity but out of passion, so I am fully
behind that. I just didn't see anything in that video that blew my mind in
that respect.

I would love to see something projected which would reasonably leap us to the
(next thing) the way the personal computer did 20 years ago. This MSFT thing
falls short of that IMO.

~~~
mc32
Yes, that has always been the promise of technology, to deliver people from
tedium. The unanswered question, if people aren't really needed to do 'work'
(giving them the free time) where or how do people earn a living?

Moreover, as machines/automation/computers make us more efficient, this hasn't
translated into free time individually but rather made people previously
employable, unemployable. So the free time that we might think is due us
does't come to us, but is diverted to other people up to a point those other
people aren't employed and the people who remain employed work just as long as
before.

So, i guess the hope is that as people become redundant at work, that there
will be a mechanism to compensate people for their lost earning power. Keep in
mind, it's not like the world would switch over on a Monday --it would be
gradual and that means lots of people falling through the cracks, _if_ a
solution was found.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
I would argue this is one of the key questions of the 21st century. The best
answer anyone has so far is basic income.

------
dsg42
So, a lot of the comments here are misunderstanding what this video is, and
focusing on parts that don't matter. First, here are the last two editions:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gEWoVCl-
xU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gEWoVCl-xU)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cNdhOKwi0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cNdhOKwi0)

In addition many commenters are getting distracted by the nature of the
displays, the lack of focus on people, and the level of automation in the
software. This video is made by Microsoft's Office team, and the key idea here
is the content of the productivity scenarios they've expressed. And
truthfully, they've made some fairly successful predictions in past videos,
including items like Skype automatic translation, services like PlateJoy,
natural ink processing...

So what are they actually predicting here? Here's what I spot in order:

Augmented reality in work scenarios (diving)

Gesture control in augmented reality

Sharing of what you personally see

3D printers in the classroom

Pannable panoramic video recordings

Trivial sharing between computers

Flexible screens

Perfect wireless coverage

Advanced budgeting assistance

High quality freelancer-project matching

Use of pens on touch screens for writing and more

Automatic advanced data-visualizations (the types of things that are custom
made at the moment)

An armband device using hand gestures instead of touch.

24 hour coworking spaces available on short notice.

Easy window organization

Do not disturb for all incoming contact

Automatic diet tracking

Even better contextual video

Advanced job performance analysis

Looks like a pretty cool and not unreasonable list of predictions to me.
They're not saying that this is what this WILL look like, just what it might
look like. And honestly, I think we will see at least 50% of those items in
the next ten years.

------
interpol_p
So Microsoft's vision of the future is for us to continue to be touching flat
screens well into the future? Pinch to zoom, drag and drop. Those two gestures
pretty much dominated their vision.

There seems to be a lot of production value in this video, but it doesn't seem
thought out. The interfaces just show drag and drop, and then items spouting
animated complex information. There also seems to be a hell of a lot more
screens in the future.

It doesn't feel like anyone took a real world work or play scenario and
thought it through from end-to-end with future technology.

I don't know where future technology will take us, but I hope it reduces the
amount of time we spend in front of screens. I hope it allows us to spend more
physical time with the people we love, not just talk to them on giant Skype
screens.

~~~
mc32
As I said in another post, the video pretty much reduces people to a secondary
role. It's not so much technology enabling us or aiding us, but more we
supplement technology --but only because technology is allowing us to
interact.

The good is that people would have a lot of free time (presumably to do good
things), the unanswered question, is now that most people are redundant, what
do they do to earn a living? Magic? Bureaucracy?

~~~
interpol_p
I don't really think the video reduces people to a secondary role. It shows
people driving the technology for the most part. My issue with the video is
that the technology demonstrated within it doesn't seem to enable or aid any
more than what we currently have. It just happens on more screens with more
animation.

I would like to see technology take our tasks from us. I love thinking,
designing and creating things, but there is still so much tedium in
implementation. To take that away would be to accelerate everyone's creative
ability.

If we had the ability to automate all tasks then we probably wouldn't need to
earn a living. We would need a government could recognise that the value
created by our technology should be distributed amongst everyone equally.

------
tdicola
I'd love to know why companies even waste time making videos like these
anymore. Looking back at past stuff (like the 'smart home' from Microsoft in
the mid 90's:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V_0xDUg0h0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V_0xDUg0h0))
it's pretty hilarious how out of touch they are with reality.

~~~
psbp
That video seemed incredibly prescient. A lot of the features in the video are
a couple years off from mass adoption, and maybe it's a bit more geared
towards the 90s mindset, but there's a current day equivalent to most of the
functionality.

~~~
tdicola
Well for whatever reason it certainly didn't help MS in the long run to
produce that video. They missed the technology that actually mattered like the
iPod, iPhone, and iPad and are still scrambling to catch up to everyone.

~~~
nightski
Actually we have no idea whether it helped or not. It may have helped a lot,
just that there were too many other forces fighting against it. I'd imagine a
video like this could serve as something to get the employees talking (even if
they bash it).

------
jyzzmoe
Remember the gorilla arm.

[http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/G/gorilla-
arm.html](http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/G/gorilla-arm.html)

~~~
noblethrasher
Something like gorilla-arm might be good thing: Humans probably aren't
supposed to be sitting in front of a computer for hours at a time; gorilla-arm
is just a non-dismissible signal that it's time to take a break.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
You can only go so long at a whiteboard, what saves us is that we usually
spend more time taking than writing.

------
mark_l_watson
Very cool look at how human computer interactions may look like. I especially
liked to "co working" segment in which the woman walked into a studio, and
transformed a blank drafting table into her personal environment.

I would personally feel better if future computing environments used open
standards and be open source.

I know that companies like Microsoft, Apple, etc. have the resources to do the
R&D and produce products, but I don't want to see competing incompatible
systems slow progress.

I know it is a stretch to hope for, but this is why I favor open web standards
to apps, even on small devices.

------
sumo
A lot of what is shown is actually collaboration between 'Kat' and 'Lola' in
real-time. Being able to input information from any device, view and present
it on some other device, and of course also being able to convert any
situation into a conference with someone else is really important and a great
vision really. All of that is what we actually focus on at Collusion
([https://collusionapp.com/](https://collusionapp.com/)) which is free to use
at the moment and does a lot of this in a less slick way.

With the introduction of more and more large screen interactive devices,
wearables, pen enabled devices and Virtual reality/AR options, we can open up
more and more possibilities that are shown in this clip.

Whats more is that augmented reality is shown a lot here which will become
more and more prevalent as a way to blend productivity with the world around
us, as well as generally making things more human/natural/fluid, which is also
very interesting for the near future, though perhaps not the augmentation
without a HMD anytime soon.

As high production the video is and unrealistic or embellished some things
might be, effortless and instant transition of information through our systems
is certainly possible and I think very probable and I'm glad that MS is
showing that in it's vision for productivity in the enterprise. Which is what
this video is really about. Microsoft, with its connections to so many diverse
electronics business's like Intel, Wacom and Samsung it could certainly
deliver on many of these concepts into the future given the right software.

------
frik
Bill Gates last vision video "information at your fingertips" (1995):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XxeY-
OchwY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XxeY-OchwY)

It shows a _wallet PC_ (=smartphone), digital currency (like BitCoin), touch
screen, digital personal agent (next-gen Siri/Cortana/Watson), database based
filesystem/shell (like Windows Cairo & WinFS - vamporware).

------
Touche
Chairs with no backs... I'll stay in the present.

------
ArekDymalski
What baffles me when I look at all these futuristic interfaces is that they do
not take into consideration the most productive combination:
keyboard+mouse+voice+3D depth. It would allow you do many things at once and
as a result save time. Limiting users to gestures on flat surface looks nice
and easy but isn't the fastest way to interact with stuff on the screen.

------
dogma1138
While not to start a whole discussion about this, is MSFT vision of the future
is one where women do all the work?

------
ksk
As long as the vision doesn't contain annoying online advertising I'll take
it. The video was neat, but how close are we to solving the battery problem?
I'd like a laptop that can last a week. Or charger tech that can charge a day-
long device in under 2 minutes. Thank you very much.

~~~
eru
If you took a current generation battery, and paired it with current
generation processors, but dialed the performance to early 2000s---we might
get there already?

(People did good work with that level of performance. And even with much
less.)

~~~
ksk
Good point.

------
milesf
Ever notice how companies like General Motors & Microsoft like to make
"concept" stuff like this, while companies like Apple and Tesla don't bother?

Who's actually delivering on great stuff? Companies that talk about it, or
those who just clam up and get to work?

------
shogun21
Interesting how it compares with their earlier vision of 2019
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gEWoVCl-
xU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gEWoVCl-xU)).

Seems to be fewer screens in the new one.

~~~
stanley
I was thinking the same thing as I was watching it. The interaction hasn't
changed as much as the form of the screen itself has become more versatile.

------
nartz
I like seeing this kind of thing out of microsoft - tons of smart people
there. Although, how about first things first, and allow excel to handle more
than a million rows?

------
snarfy
The future is full of smudge marks.

------
eranation
This is all great, and really beautiful and well produced.

What worries me, is that even today, with our simple 2D word / excel, people
utilize about 10% of the feature in a good day, and it takes me a few google
searches to find where microsoft has hidden "insert your favorite lesser known
function here" in version X.

New UX (and by new UX I mean things like holographic / hands manipulate
augmented reality items on your HUD kind of UX) should not require user
training. I watched this movie 2 times and I still don't understand what
exactly they are doing (I get the idea, but if I need to answer a test on what
apps they are using and what exactly each gesture means / does, you lost me...
is she a publisher? a researcher? a biologist? a teacher? what's the
connections between all these movies?)

Having all this gesture based / 3D / eye movement / real objects interact with
digital ones - this needs to be making life _simpler_ to make use more
_productive_.

The challenge of the real UX designers of the future is how to make all this
unbelievable enormous vector of inputs (mobile phones I'm looking at you too,
most apps only evolved to a touchpad / touch screen gestures, mostly swiping
with single fingers, how many apps really utilize multiple finger actions
except zooming? how many really rely on "shake to send undo", it's still not
catching on... now add all the new inputs we saw in the videos, and add
Microsoft's new holographic vision, people will go to a mental institute just
to turn on a word processor)

The more options we will have to do something the more confusing it will be.
And yes, even if kids learn it at school, no technology will have high
adaptation rates if it much harder than a mouse click or a keyboard type (or a
touch screen tap / swipe which are very small gradual and natural evolutions
of the mouse, and only the swipe / tap / double tap / pinch to zoom _really_
caught up out of a myriad of other possibilities)

Also the 2D UX in the video, instead of making sense is just beautiful, and so
damn confusing, I have no clue what actual ACTIONS these people do, except
joining some project together, wasn't sure if it was a biology project, an
aquatic one specifically, an education one, or a non profit one. (but perhaps
this is just poor editing)

In one sentence - if this is the future, it's beautiful, and so darn
confusing. All people with SaaS here know what I'm talking about - getting
users to read a red blinking note and press a button that says X will still
get users who simply don't get it. no go get them do a 3D gesture that will
launch a floating globe hologram without a 2 hour training... that's the real
challenge IMHO.

~~~
exocortex
Confusion is the first step to learning anything worthwhile. We shouldn't be
shielding people from it. I have a feeling that if as a species we're going to
create some Media for Thinking the Unthinkable, it won't be by continuing to
emulate 2D paper. Of course people are going to "require user training" \- if
we stopped to design for the most common denominator we'd never increase the
scope of our expression.

We navigate and create complex systems every day that could be more easily
absorbed and understood with more complex, dynamic representations. I see the
world as pictured as one where Word no longer exists, where you can send
someone a simulation and be understood in a few minutes instead of spending
hours with a whiteboard or months getting a proof of concept built by a
development team.

"is she a publisher? a researcher? a biologist? a teacher?"

Why not all 4?

