Microsoft researchers make me cry | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft researchers make me cry

scobleizer.com

20 pointsdrm23730 comments

I'm guessing Microsoft has invented a two-wheeled gyro-stabilized personal vehicle which will revolutionize transportation.

I remember when I first saw Bill Atkinson's Hypercard back in 1988, when it came bundled with my MacSE. I was 15 and it opened a world of possibilities for me as far as creating something fast and functional. True, Hypercard was not something that made much of an impact on the world at that time...

It was a few years before we saw a derivative of the human-computer interaction present in Hypercard come out that changed the world in the form of NCSA Mosaic. I'm guessing Scoble was moved to tears because he feels the seeds of something great is going to be released on March 3 in that it will open up a world of possibilities for some other group or individual to take the possibilities to a higher level (in much the same way Mosaic took the concepts of Hypercard to the next level). I highly doubt we are going to benefit immediately from whatever we see.

I also think Scoble has hit upon a great point: today's overwhelmingly profit driven model for creating software sometimes misses the beauty in creating something for the pure joy of creation (probably an ironic statement given the fact that this is a VC-based message board). Part of me is saying this because one of the projects I'm working on frequently hits the question: "It's a nice idea but how is it going to make money?" (so I suppose my personal biases are showing through here in this remark).

Hypercard was my first exposure to a Mac and to programming. I remember thinking programming can be fun!

I remember staying up to 4am with my college roommate, the night we found installed NCSA Mosaic for the first time. Of course, we regret not becoming wealthy by creating a free email service or whatever (it was wide open) but ce la vie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C'est_la_vie

Weird that (according to the article) Scoble seems to have missed Mosaic... he only became aware of the WWW by the time Netscape was released?

Good point. Scoble informs us that this project is beautiful for the same reason a scientific paper is beautiful, yet he cites the for-profit Netscape as opposed to the innovation that was the "father" of Netscape... or perhaps he just got the two mixed up - I'm willing to give him the benefit of doubt on this.

A little googling later..

http://peteremcc.wordpress.com/2008/02/15/scobles-mystery-so...

"The Photosynth technology preview runs only on Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista."

Scoble is not the only one who is crying.

They had a java applet for a while, which run on any browser. So the move is deliberate.

Apparently Microsoft is trying to make a killer app to bring the masses back to Windows. But IMO it's too late.

People in Microsoft research are among some of the best researchers in the world. Why is there a surprise here?

This makes a great iPhone app :)

There's sort of a cute easter egg in the Photosynth demo - see if you can find the photo of Stephen Hawking wheeling around the Piazza San Marco.

Have you ever known, or heard of, anyone who has cried in wonderment at a demo? Even as an exaggerated emotion signifier, that expression is uggh. Scobleizer is the anti-lolchrist. He just inspired me to make that word up.

Ginger.

"The advance buzz about the then-unknown product was, at times, hyperbolic" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segway#History

I think it's Photosynth. I run a similar (but open) project, http://openphotovr.org , and wonder what the effect on us will be.

While playing with this project I noticed a tear running down my face.

Scoble, master of cheesy hyperbole. I love technology more than the average person, but come on, a demo made him cry? You've gotta be kidding me.

From the corpspeak website:

Next Media's research focus spans the linear and interactive media spectrum from television, broadband, and gaming to combinations of traditional media forms or emerging media forms too new to have a name. The group partners with product groups within Microsoft and select outside content partners such as museums, and public broadcasting to develop conceptual and working prototypes which best demonstrate the functionality or vision for media that can anchor new businesses, services and consumer experiences.

(Thus my guess is a fullscreen handheld device with gesture input that runs Outlook, IE and Excel ;-) (but photosynth does seen quite cool)

Here's a good post. http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/brierdudley/2008/02/is...

I also bet it's a mix between seadragon and photsynth, that lets you scroll thru images going back and forth in time.

Scoble makes me cry. And not in a good way.

An extensible Windows XP with a proper CLI?

Cygwin?

...with an emphasis on the extensible - particularly the GUI.

"While listening to Wong I noticed a tear running down my face."

A digital onion peeler that takes 5 minutes to turn on?

I think they are releasing something new like 'online/offline' (think Google gears) for their flash alternative silver light. The problem is having something that users must download.

This is not so much of a problem with autoupdate, microsoft can just command all (windows) clients to download the thing.

It's not just Microsoft researchers, even the developers and UI designers can make you cry - there are millions of users who will support me.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, powered by Windows

The word going around is that its Photosynth: http://labs.live.com/photosynth

Seems it ain't Photosynth. "The thing I’m talking about is NOT anything you’ve seen Microsoft do before." http://scobleizer.com/2008/02/15/misreading-scoble-on-micros...

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