Laura Foy

Bug Killer – A Channel 9 Halloween special

Laura Foy — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:34:00 GMT

WARNING: This video contains blood, gore and one extremely frightening software developer.

Have you spent countless nights up late writing code? Have your eyes burned after staring at a monitor for 18 hours? Have you ever wanted to hack up a co-worker or two? Sure, we all have! Here’s the story of what happened to one developer on a dark and foggy night when the pressure was just too much…

Get the "Behind the Scenes" Theme here

Microsoft's Pressure Sensitive Keyboards

Laura Foy — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:36:00 GMT

There is a somewhat little known department here at Microsoft called the Applied Science Group and they do some truly incredible work. They are the research team behind Microsoft Hardware. I met up with Paul Dietz from this group and he showed me the amazing new Micrososft Pressure Sensitive Keyboard. Not only are the possibilities limitless- but they're multi-touch and predicted to be priced affordably. After he demo-ed the keyboard for me he showed off some of the winning applications made for it from the User Interface Software & Technology Conference. Absolutely Innovative!

Windows 7 Launch Party

Laura Foy — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:31:00 GMT

Microsoft and Windows 7 have asked people around the Globe to throw their own version of a House Party. They started last night, October 8th, and I hit one thrown by my colleague, Dana Manciagli at the Parlor Live Comedy Club. She not only was there to celebrate and show off Windows 7 but she partnered the event with a really cool program called Junior Achievement as part of the Microsoft Giving Campaign. Here's a quick look at one of the MANY Launch parties being thrown around the world.

Check out more pics and info on the Windows Team Blog

Ping 29: Silverlight & Movies, Company meeting, Tweets, Win7, Viral Vids

Laura Foy — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 18:50:00 GMT

We had the annual company meeting this week and Microsoft was on fire! Here's what people were talking about:

Company Meeting
Silverlight & Hollywood
Windows 7 Tweets!
Viral is good

Behind the Scenes: Office Labs

Laura Foy — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 01:02:00 GMT

"Explore. Experiment. Discuss." That's the tagline you'll see when you visit officelabs.com and that's exactly what you will have the opportunity to do. I sat down with Chris Pratley, GM of OfficeLabs to find out how this unique division of Microsoft came about and why. He also gave us some inside scoop on how things work at OfficeLabs, some stuff they have up their sleeves and, of course, how you can get involved.
Remember the Envisioning video that had the internet all buzzing a few months back? Yeah, that came from Office Labs.

Ping 23: Yahoo Partnership, Wave launches, Win7 for testers & Amazon milk ratings

Laura Foy — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:09:00 GMT

Microsoft made huge headlines this week and somehow in the mix of it all, some of us managed to search for Wolf T-shirts on Amazon. Here's how it all went down:

Microsoft and Yahoo partner
Ride the Microsoft Wave
Beta Testers get Win7 for free
Milk get high ratings!

Bing: Test Drive Microsofts new search engine

Laura Foy — Fri, 29 May 2009 20:05:00 GMT

At the All Things Digital Conference, Steve Ballmer just announced our new search engine called Bing. Bing is actually MORE than a search engine- we are referring to it as a "decision engine" as its goal is to help users make more informed decisions by collating and formatting information for you that is relevant to your search. It's exceptionally useful in areas like travel, shopping, weather and movie listings. Beyond there's there are a ton of new fun features and time saving capabilities. Watch as Stefan Weitz takes us on a test drive.

Read what the critics are saying...

Craig Mundie talks about being on Obama's advisory council

Laura Foy — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:14:00 GMT

On April 27, 2009, President Obama announced the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). PCAST was originally established in 1990 to enable the President to receive advice from the private sector and academic community on technology, scientific research priorities, and math and science education. Amongst merely 19 others chosen was our very own Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Craig Mundie. I took some time to talk with Craig about what his role will be, what PCAST is overall and, of course, what this will mean for Microsoft.

The Mouse Project

Laura Foy — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:37:00 GMT

Mike Lamanna and Annuska Perkins have taken it on themselves to design a mouse that enable special needs children to explore the wonderful world of the WWW. Watch this clip and learn about their journey- pass it along and help others.

Getting to know: Yuri Alkin

Laura Foy — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 19:21:00 GMT

Yuri Alkin is a man of many interests, and many great accomplishments. He leads the Enterprise Social Computing team (over at Engineering Excellence group) responsible for Microsoft internal projects such as CodeBox, ToolBox and Mingle. His job is to lead creation and adoption of systems that help people at Microsoft achieve more by connecting and collaborating with each other. Another way to define his job (in case you like buzzwords) is to say that he's responsible for driving adoption of Enterprise 2.0 technologies and practices at Microsoft. He is passionate about the opportunities social computing brings to the enterprise and has been spearheading Microsoft's major internal efforts in this space. So, let's get to know Yuri Alkin.

Ping: Episode 3

Laura Foy — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:58:00 GMT

This week , as always, Max and Laura observed and listened to what people here at Microsoft were buzzing about, what was on their minds and what they talked about at the water cooler. Here is a recap of what was on the minds of Microsofties this past week. Topics include:

No Ipods at the Gates house!
Sobees it!
Is 2019 real?
Microsofts new ad campaign
Windows 7 on Netbooks
Jim Allchin ROCKS!
Twitter love
Mix conference
...and more....

***UPDATE 2/18: All Windows 7 Beta copies are spoken for... thanks, everyone!***

Tech Ready 8 and WomenBuild

Laura Foy — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:59:00 GMT

The WomenBuild program incorporates a hands-on process that draws on the power of creative thinking to shift group conversation from talking heads to focused minds. Each team will be run as a facilitated conversation with physical Lego brick constructions that will powerfully shift a group to more productive outcomes by accomplishing a deeper mining of the diverse wisdom within the group and a clearer shared conclusion on inspirational career paths for women in the technical field. Through this workshop, attendees will share real life experiences, discuss challenges, network & build on-going relationships with other women who are attending the PDC conference. Ultimately, attendees of this workshop will find ways to unleash their creative thinking and transform ideas into concrete concepts.

Microsoft took the findings and suggestions from these 11 cities and reviewed them at TechReady8, an internal Microsoft conference held in Seattle, February 1^st as part of their own internal WomenBuild event! Over a hundred Microsoft women employees took time to prioritize the top suggestions provided during PDC & MDC and design solutions to address these needs. These solutions will serve as a call to action on what Microsoft can do to help address the issue.

The community is over 200+ on Facebook! Join now!

Please contact Asli Bilgin sits down with Stephen Forte, chief strategy officer of Telerik, to discuss the excitement revolving around the upcoming MSDN Developer Conferences. They are particularly enthused about WomenBuild Lego Seriousplay- an event within the conference that combines personal interaction and networking with the use of LEGO bricks as a conceptual modeling tool, part of the LEGO Serious Play Program. Watch this clip to find out more and learn how you can participate and REGISTER NOW!

Mr. Indigo & Mrs. Azure

Laura Foy — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 05:24:00 GMT

The creation of cloud computing...

Did you miss the PDC? Can't get enough of the big brain in the jar? Or perhaps you simply want to re-live good times? Well, now you can! The MSDN Developer Conference is kicking off an 11 city tour- We’re bringing the PDC to you! For just $99 you’ll get the best of the PDC in your own backyard and hear all of the exciting announcements around the Azure Services Platform and Windows 7. Other sessions include the latest developments in .NET, Silverlight, Surface, Parallel Programming, Live Mesh, and more. So don't miss out- REGISTER NOW!

Register NOW for the MSDN Developer Conference

Laura Foy — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 03:01:00 GMT

If you weren't lucky enough to attend the PDC- or if you want to learn a bit more and experience it all again- then SIGN UP NOW for the MSDN Developer Conference. I spent some time with two of my favorite architects- Juval Lowy and Michele Leroux Bustamante- and we got the scoop. CHECK OUT THE VIDEO.