michaelvw

This is a minor point, but rumors of IBM's demise are greatly exaggerated. Last I checked it had a market cap of more than $160B.

One could argue that IBM's PC business is what died, but I'd say Dell did more to kill that than Microsoft (my guess is MS doesn't care whose hardware they run on.) The other companies the author described, Xerox and Bell Labs and Apple, only one is still kicking around in the consumer technology space, and it almost died along the way too.

The "MS is managed into the toilet" comments seem like the other side of the "Apple is destroying openness/hobbies" or "Google kills privacy" memes. I read it as people wishing a particular company was different, more like how the authors want them to be... open, friendly, innovative and awesome. Like a digital Santa Claus. Fact is, all of these companies are successful, with weaknesses and strengths. I'd like a more level-headed comparison of those, personally, rather than nostalgia.

All of these companies are shifting, like IBM did. Google is really going after mobile, MS is really going after businesses (with a side quest into the living room), and Apple is doing it all. It's just interesting to see who's big bets will pay off.

3DV, the company whose 3D camera technology MS bought a few months ago, has published some papers on their technology. I haven't read them, so I cannot vouch for their depth (no pun intended).

http://www.3dvsystems.com/technology/tech.html#1

I assume that the tech inside the camera is same as the 3DV ZCam, who MS purchased a few months ago. One camera captures RGB images, the other captures depth information from infrared pulses. The depth cam isn't very high res (I think 320x240 @ 30fps), but it doesn't really need to be for gesture recognition.

I've worked with the ZCam and its kind of finicky - its very sensitive to how the depth sensor is calibrated. Also, the depth sensing doesn't work well with reflective surfaces that I've seen. I'm curious if/how they've gotten around those issues.

I am less concerned by the implication of reduced productivity. Though reading Hacker News may negatively impact present productivity, it may improve future productivity by exposing readers to new concepts, approaches, etc.

It reminds me of an article about Pixar (though a cursory search doesn't seem to find it...) which described their workspaces as having only a few central bathrooms in order to facilitate people running into each other, discussing ideas, and being exposed to different people's work. I think Hacker News provides a similar service without having to get up and walk at all.