Microsoft’s promotional video depicting a future in which interconnected touchscreen and gesture-controlled devices pervade every facet of daily life will make people crave the possibilities, but also wonder how they will afford them.
It’s hard to imagine the average person shelling out the kind of cash it would take to buy super smart appliances, the latest intelligent car as well as an entire range of interactive computing devices.
And while creating hardware that make 3D holographs jump off a screen or interactive family chalk boards that a parent can write on while traveling may be possible, the amount of data and programming needed to make these things actually play out in everyday life would likely be extraordinary.
The video also shows walls made of grass, car windows that display the time and a refrigerator with an interactive front face that communicates what food is inside.
In a blog post, Microsoft Office Division President Kurt DelBene wrote that all of the ideas in the video are based on real technology either already existing or in development at Microsoft and other companies.
“Collaborating on projects with remote colleagues gets easier. Information can be interacted with and manipulated using touch and voice commands to create beautiful and useful documents. Better decisions can be made faster with information that is contextually relevant to where you are and what you are doing,” he wrote.
According to Wired, the video explores what productivity technology might look like in five to ten years, although the concepts in the video don’t necessarily indicate plans for future Microsoft products.
TechFlash points out that Microsoft’s vision looks like an extension of Microsoft's Metro design ethos, the user interface created for Windows Phone and the focus of its upcoming Windows 8 operating system.
Want more? Check out this equally tantalizing video posted by Corning earlier this year in which glass surfaces of all sorts become interactive communication and computing marvels.
Here’s Microsoft’s rendering of the future:
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