The Digital Dilemma

Presenter Microsoft Research : Phil Fawcett — 24 years. No public PowerPoint is available. He used video illustrations and PowerPoint slides that cannot be published due to their proprietary nature.

Very basic rambling from me, but the presentation from Mr. Fawcett was fast moving.

Goal: World Class Basic Research. $8 billion in 2009.

He asked that we take 3 ideas to back. With what three things are you experimenting?  

800 PhDs worldwide

Microsoft Research (MSR) is supporting a U.S.-Canadian consortium building an enormous underwater observatory on the Juan de Fuca Plate off the coast of Washington state. Project Neptune will connect thousands of chemical, geological and biological sensors on more than 1,000 miles of fiber-optic cables and will stream data continuously to scientists for as long as a decade. Researchers will be able to test their theories by looking at the data, but software tools that MSR is developing will search for patterns and events not anticipated by scientists and present their findings to the scientists.  

Here is what Phil discussed:

1. Overview
2. Future Trends
3. Demos of New Technology
4. Principles of Breakthrough Innovation

Like everyone, let’s hire the best people. It’s hackneyed, but it’s true.

900 million user base with 400 million people making $5 / day in India.

MSR Cambridge, Bangalore, Beijing, Redmond, San Francisco among other places.

Need to engage in rapid translation into products.

How do you use large data sets? Very important topic. Talk to your sales representative. 150 top demonstrations for Tech Fest in February. Ask Cynthia.

Worldwide to focus on the next billion users. He says that he ran out of really smart CS people in the United States.

1. SPAM filter to make an HIV protein identifier.
2. 3D Without the glasses and vertigo with James Cameron
3. Virtual Hands
4. Boku
5. Global Telescope
6. HD View: Brain Science Example
7. Surface
8. Personal Robots
9. Situated Engagement (Receptionist Project) — Dan Bohus
10. Play Anywhere
11. Sphere
12. Connectome Project Brain mapping with HDVIEW — from photos to health care (Harvard Medical School)

The process of innovation is not linear.  Imagination is the biggest required. Managing the present juxtaposed with creating the future create a natural tension.   Research is more failure than success. Only 25% of projects transfer out to product. The real issue is whether or not you learn from the failures and change your direction.

2008 Truisms

• Bulk computing is almost free. Software and power are not.
• Inexpensive sensors are ubiquitous. Data fusion is difficult
• Moving lots of data is still hard. Missing tb/s speeds.
• People are expensive. Robust software is people intensive. Windows has 65 million lines of codes.
• Science Problems are complex. Fusing technology and science is a social problem.

As leaders, are you stirring things up? We need to change and stir. Efficiency is the pattern relative to differentiation. Also, innovation is about harnessing the mavericks.

Users Experience Waves: 1994 – 2015

• Standalone
• Internet
• Rich Media
• Search
• Content centric
• Surface
• Immersive

 ”space” like the Wii or Surface is the new frontier. HCI is the future. Remove cognitive barriers like the keyboard and the mouse. Speech or kinetics is a replacement example.

To take risks, people must feel safe. Big challenge.

The personal robot: good demonstration video  

The Eras

1. DOS Era 80s
2. GUI Era mid 80s – 90s
3. Internet Era 90s – 00
4. Client Cloud 05 -+

Real breakthroughs are emergent rather than planned. Formal, fixed, disciplined approach normally do not yield innovation. Chaos yields breakthrough.

Big focus on Microsoft and Healthcare. Focus on developing markets like the Drugstore in a Box to use a printer to remotely create antibiotics.  

1. Predictive
2. Participatory
3. Preventative
4. Personalized