Mundie (Microsoft) about the future of computing

Craig Mundie is Microsoft's Chief Research and Strategy Officer and he recently spoke at the MIT Emerging Technology Conference about the future of computing. The key message of his speech was that he envisions a 3D virtual world populated by virtual presences. This all by using a combination of client and cloud services. The name for this future computing is "spatial computing". The main elements for spatial computing are for example:3D and immersive computing, parallel programming, seamlessly connected, context-aware, personalized, humanistic, adaptive and utilizing speech, vision and gestures. Spatial computing is the merge of local and centralized data services. Microsoft is planning to realize the concept of spatial computing omn their own campus by introducing a new virtual reception assistant. This futuristic reception assistant (clip), like an avatar, will help employees to schedule shuttle reservations to get people to various locations across the campus. The system is able to recognize people and interact with them.

For a few thousand dollars you could put in an assistant who can guide robotic interaction. There is a wealth of opportunity for this, and it will allow people to develop applications and change the way the bulk of the population interacts with computers

Mundie gave also a demo which gives us a glimp into the future of the Internet or even the connected world. Just have a look at the clip below where Mundie shows how information from the physical world, like a magazine, is getting digital by making a picture of it and then via the virtual world find additional information. There is also the possibility that smart handhelds will navigate us through the physical world. Essential for spatial computing is to create some kind of a cyberspace version of the entire physical world. And for this everyone must make contributions to the digital world. This on a continuous basis. We started to do so but this also means that there must be a paradigm shift in how applications are developed.

We have to master the transition to a parallel programming environment, with highly distributed, concurrent systems. It's nascent at this point but it's required to achieve these capabilities.

Via: Cnet