Entries tagged with hardware - Channel 9

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!

Hanselminutes on 9 - Inside Secret Microsoft Meeting Rooms - What Laptop do Alpha Geeks Use?

Glucose — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:11:00 GMT

I'm up in Redmond visiting for a few days this week and I'm in a super-secret meeting in an undisclosed location (Well, actually it's Studio C in the 3408 conference room, but still, what can you do with that?) and during a break I noticed how everyone had a different laptop. Here's 6 short minutes on who's running what. You might recognize a few familiar faces.

Lynne Hill: Parallel Computing Platform - The Vision and Future

Charles — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:38:00 GMT

Over the past few months you've seen several interviews with members of Microsoft's Parallel Computing Platform team and we've learned about tooling advances, managed support for parallelism (Parallel Extensions for .NET), and native support for parallelism (the Concurrency Runtime).

Here, we meet the leader of the Parallel Computing Platform team, General Manager Lynne Hill. Lynne is a veteran Microsoft leader, starting the Parallel Computing Team and builiding it into what it is today, a relatively large organization with many virtual members spread across the entire company. The Parallel Computing Team (and the industry at large, of course) have a tremendously daunting task: bringing parallel computing to the general purpose masses. The Parallel Computing Platform is in fact making significant strides in this area, as I hope we've made clear on Channel 9. Lynne tells us about the vision of her team, the history of the problem and the future of parallelism. She makes it clear that with the advent of much more computing power the industry is poised to invent some incredibly interesting technologies that will enable new classes of computation experience for computer users. Now, the problem of getting a grip on how to harness the impending power of many-core in reasonable ways is of paramount importance. Go Lynne! Go!

Enjoy.

TechFest - Feng Zhao - Tiny Web Services

Dan Fernandez — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:53:58 GMT

In honor of Earth day today, we're putting this video back up on the home page as it's a great eco-friendly concept and it's programmable!

What if you could build a microchip that was power efficient enough to run a small Web server and host Web services that enabled it to monitor or change it's state, all using 2AA batteries that could run for years? Feng's team is building exactly that, a series of prototype sensors that can be used to do things like monitor electricity efficiency and usage over time to help reduce costs and be more green and you can programatically control them in Visual Studio like you would any Web service.

Techfest - Chuck Thacker and John Davis - Revitalizing Chip Architecture Research

Dan Fernandez — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:31:47 GMT

The goal of this Techfest project is to help revitalize chipset architecture research by enabling academia to build new chip architectures without the expense of fabricating custom chips.

TechNet Radio: Building a Green Datacenter

erickingfrog — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 17:35:52 GMT

On today’s TechNet radio, we talk with Dave Ohara about building a Green Datacenter. What is a Green Datacenter, and how can it be implemented? What are some strategies to getting executive buyoff?

Eric Ostrowski - Your Show Host and TechNet Radio Producer

Dave Ohara - Dave Ohara has 26 years of experience in technology, working for such companies as Microsoft, Apple, and Hewlett-Packard. Working in product development, marketing, technical evangelism, infrastructure architecture, process engineering, reliability engineering, and distribution logistics, Dave is now working with multiple companies implementing green initiatives.

JAOO 2007: Joe Armstrong - On Erlang, OO, Concurrency, Shared State and the Future, Part 2

Charles — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:59:00 GMT

Often, after the camera is turned off, the conversation continues and, on occasion is truly interesting. Of course, as you could image, Joe, Erik and I continued to chat about concurrent programming, functional languages, the future of hardware-software interaction, etc, when I turned the camera off after Joe Armstrong is the principle inventor of the Erlang programming Language and coined the term "Concurrency Oriented Programming". He has worked for Ericsson where he developed Erlang and was chief architect of the Erlang/OTP system.

In 1998 he left Ericsson to form Bluetail, a company which developed all its products in Erlang. In 2003 he obtain his PhD from the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. The title of his thesis was "Making reliable distributed systems in the presence of software errors." Today he works for Ericsson.

He is author of the book Software for a concurrent world: (Pragmatic Bookshelf - July 15, 2007). He is married with 2 children, 2 cats and 4 motorcycles and would very much like to sell his Royal Enfield Bullet and replace it with a Norton Commando.

Inside MultiTouch: Team, Demo, Lab Tour

Charles — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 00:31:33 GMT

MSR Cambridge is a hotbed of innovation. TabletPC, Machine Learning, Vision, F#, Generics, Software Transactional Memory to name only a few off the top of my head (yeah, I probably missed some bigger ones. It's OK. You get the point...).

You've heard of the latest brainchild: MultiTouch (you've seen the YouTube video, I'd imagine...). But, you haven't met all the characters involved with this intriguing invention (no, it's not really related to Microsoft Surface and other highly sophisticated multi-touch technologies) and you've certainly not heard about what they're currently working on or seen where they experiment and build this stuff.

Well, now you will. Meet the scientists behind MultiTouch; Shahram Izadi, Alex Butler, and Steve Hodges. Tune in and learn about the Who, What, How and Why behind MSR's innovative MultiTouch. It's pretty amazing and, surprisingly, not incredibly complicated technology. Find out all about it right here on Channel 9. :)

Enjoy!

TechNet Radio: Microsoft Debuts Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.0

erickingfrog — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 18:37:44 GMT

Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.0 is now available for download. This popular Windows Vista deployment tool offers IT professionals a quick way to assess their existing computers’ readiness for Windows Vista in terms of hardware and device compatibility. The new version provides selective inventory, enhanced scalability for larger corporate networks and assessment for Office 2007.

Eric Ostrowski – Your Show Host and TechNet Radio Producer

Chris Avis – IT Pro Evangelist

Baldwin Ng – Senior Product Manager for the Microsoft Solution Accelerators Team

Catharine van Ingen: Software Architecture, Global Warming, MIPS and Hydrology

Charles — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 17:50:48 GMT

What do global warming, a scientific instrument weighing about 4500 tons and bill collection have in common? The once Berkeley ‘hippie chick’ turned Software Architect Catharine van Ingen. Catharine has a wealth of experience in hardware, including work with the Alpha machine and MIPS processor teams, industrial-strength software for algorithms used to manage water flows, logging data from particle accelerator detectors, and buying Mickey Mouse watches over the Internet.

BlueHat - #2: Bluetooth Snipers

Rory — Wed, 30 May 2007 19:58:23 GMT

You may have seen these guys on slashdot a couple years ago. They set out to prove that Bluetooth, despite its relatively short range, is a security hazard.

Turns out it is.

Watch.

Nick Baker: XBox 360 Architecture

Charles — Fri, 25 May 2007 18:36:30 GMT

What is the XBox 360, exactly? How do you go about designing and building a game console that meets the high standards of today's gamers and handles the computational pressures of today's highly realistic games (think real time physics computation, incredibly rich graphics, etc)? Did you know the XBox 360 team saw into the multi-core future before most anybody else?

Well, who better to talk to about all of this (and more) than Nick Baker. Nick is a hardware engineer and Director who leads the team that thought up the XBox 360 hardware architecture. It's an impressive piece of machinery. In fact, Nick recently won the Outstanding Technical Leadership award for the effort. Here, Nick takes us through the design history and some of the implementation details of the XBox 360. What were some of the design trade-offs? How different is the XBox 360 that you can buy today from what you, Nick and his team were initially thinking?

It's a very interesting story.

We get pretty geeky here, so be prepared to learn a thing or two about game console hardware architecture, the future of XBox 360 as it relates to multi-core, game programming language evolution in the multi-core, and more.

TechNet Radio - Assess Your Hardware and Device Readiness for Windows Vista using Windows Vista Hard

auroraqueen — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 20:00:14 GMT

The Windows Vista Hardware Assessment is an assessment and inventory tool designed to help customers and partners quickly assess their PCs’ readiness for Windows Vista upgrades network-wide with a single networked PC. Chris Avis sits down and talks with Baldwin Ng, the Product Manager for the Microsoft Solution Accelerators Core Engineering Team, about WVHA and how it is designed to remotely connect to PCs on a network, assess their hardware and device compatibility with Windows Vista, and automatically create comprehensive reports with assessment results and upgrade recommendations for each PC. They also discuss how the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment does not require the installation of any software agents on PCs to perform the assessment.

Participants:

Aurora Queen – Your Show Host and TechNet Radio Producer

Chris Avis – IT Pro Evangelist

Baldwin Ng – Baldwin Ng is the Product Manager for the Microsoft Solution Accelerators Core Engineering Team. He works with customers, partners and Microsoft product teams including Windows Vista, Windows Servers, and others to build world-class solution accelerators to empower today’s IT professionals. His current projects include Windows Vista Readiness Assessment, Microsoft Assessment and Deployment Solution and Model-Based Deployment. Baldwin has more than 14 years of product management and development experience in the internet services, digital e-commerce and mobile device industries. He frequently speaks at technology events including TechEd, TechReady, Worldwide Partner Conference, SMB Nation and others. Baldwin received an MBA from the University of Washington and graduated from the University of Rochester with MS and BS degrees in Engineering.

Microsoft Research TechFest - XNA, a depth-sensing camera, an LCD projector, and some genius

Rory — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 18:50:05 GMT

There was one booth at TechFest that was constantly jammed with people. Everybody wanted to interview Andy Wilson.

I'm not quite sure what to call his work. I can think of all sorts of adjectives with which to describe it, but an actual name escapes me.

I will say that I had never seen anything like it.

Without a name, then, I'll just say that it's the world's coolest example of real-time terrain generation with XNA through the use of a depth-sensing video camera and real world objects.

It's also probably the world's only example of real-time terrain generation with XNA through the use of a depth-sensing video camera and real world objects.

And even that mouthful isn't enough to describe everything you'll see in this relatively short video.

Something to keep in mind while watching is that this was Andy's first XNA project.

It made me question whether or not I actually know anything at all about coding...

Microsoft Research TechFest - Technology on the Wall

Rory — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 00:51:19 GMT

TechFest is quite the event. The room it's taking place in isn't especially big, but it seems enormous because any geek with an ounce of good geeky sense knows to stop at every single last booth.

Nothing bores. Nothing displeases.

It's all amazing.

In this video, you'll get to take a look at some of the ideas MSR has come up with for technology in the home. They want to integrate tech into daily living in such a way that tech is just a medium. The point is to share, view, talk, and enjoy.

All the things you should do at home.

Off camera, I asked if I could buy some of the stuff, and I got a firm no. I think they were happy, though. I mean, who wouldn't be?

If I had designed this stuff I'd be quite proud of myself.

These MSR people really are a different breed. I feel fortunate to have gotten to walk around so casually and talk to so many of them.

CodingFun: Viper Robot controlled via IR and PowerShell

Code4Fun — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 22:28:16 GMT

A screencast to go along with the Coding4Fun Microbric Robot series.

Be sure to double-click on the video for FullScreen.

- Scott Hanselman

The C# Disco Floor Guy - Clint Rutkas

Rory — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 18:41:59 GMT

I first learned about Clint Rutkas when I read a Coding4Fun article in which he described what it took to build a C#-driven disco floor for his apartment (Clint has since become the Coding4Fun blog home page author - congrats on that).

I figured I'd meet him at a conference someday or something, but otherwise tucked the information into the back of my head.

Then, last week, Mel Sampat, a guy who works on Windows Mobile stuff, sent me an email saying that he had a visitor with him who really wanted to meet me.

This happens every once in a while, and, yes, my ego inflates a bit each time. But this was different.

When Mel showed up with Clint, I still didn't know who Clint was. I thought he was another person stopping by to say "Hi" and get a tour of the Channel 9 offices.

About three minutes into meeting him, though, Mel told me who he was - The Disco Floor Guy!

I went a little nuts. Now, instead of Mel bringing someone by who wanted to meet me, it turned into Mel bringing someone by who I wanted to meet.

Many of us have been through something similar to this. You find out who someone is online - usually through articles, a blog, or whatever - but you have no idea what that someone looks like, so, the first time you meet in person, you talk for anywhere from three minutes to three hours before realizing who it is you're talking to.

That's what happened here, and it was neat.

I gave Clint a tour around the offices, and then asked if he'd like to be in a C9 video.

He did :)

2007/1/28 Windows Vista & 2007 Office system　新世代プレミアムフェスタ＠表参道ヒルズ

c9Japan — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 12:33:40 GMT

This is Japanese conversation only. English subtitle is not available.
This video shows you a special event for Windows Vista & 2007 Office system by Microsoft Japan at Omotesando Hills, Tokyo, Japan from Jan 27, 2007 to Jan 28, 2007.
You can see many brand new PCs for Japanese market.
The video length is 26min. 34sec.

26分34秒のビデオです。
1/27 (土)、28 (日) の 2 日間、東京表参道ヒルズに待望の Windows Vista / 2007 Office system 搭載 PC が一同にラインアップし、Windows Vistaと2007 Office systemをいち早く体験できるイベントを開催しました。

このビデオでは、1/28の午後のロケで取材したイベントの様子をご覧いただけます。

表参道ヒルズの建物のあちこちにWindows Vista / 2007 Office systemのデビューをお知らせするサインが置かれました。

Microsoft Concierge Cafeは、マイクロソフト社員と直に接することができる場所で、多くのWindows Vista対応PCがおかれ、Windows Vistaと2007 Office systemに関心ある方々がたくさん集まりました。

展示ブースでは、日本国内に新しく登場するWindows Vista対応PCを用いて、
・写真
・音楽
・デジタルエンターテイメント
・使いやすさと信頼性
といったテーマでデモが行われていました。

このビデオの中におきましても、
・Windows Media Player 11とWindows Media対応携帯プレイヤーの連携
・Windows Media Center
・XBOX 360とWindows Media Centerとの連携
・デジカメとWindows Vistaとプリンタの連携
のデモをご覧いただけます。

ハイビジョンテレビに接続して使うPCやDLNA対応の機器と連携するPCが展示されており、家庭環境でのデジタルコンテンツの楽しみ方の広がりが垣間見れたイベントでもありました。

ロゴグッズショップも賑わいを見せ、抽選会場にもたくさんの人々がいらっしゃいました。

収録スケジュールの関係で、2007 Office systemを十分にカバーできませんでしたが、会場内ではOfficeの新機能に対するお客様の驚きや期待の声がたくさん聞こえておりました。

ご来場いただきました皆様、誠にありがとうございます。

引き続き、新世代プレミアムフェスタは、日本全国の量販店などで開催しますので、次のアドレスから日程をご確認ください。
http://www.microsoft.com/japan/athome/ultimatetimes/events/eec/shop/default.mspx

関連サイト:
Windows Vista & the 2007 Microsoft Office system Ultimate Times
http://www.microsoft.com/japan/athome/ultimatetimes/default.mspx
Window Vista & 2007 Office systemブログ
http://ultimatetimes.spaces.live.com/

Windows Home Server

Rory — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 00:17:51 GMT

Microsoft is a big company. Everybody knows this, but it really hits home when your job is to go around and interview people from its many divisions.

Before shooting this video, I didn't even know there was a Windows Home Server coming out.

But there is.

And if you want to know what it is, then check out this video.

(As a side note, my favorite interviews are the ones in which I don't know much at all about the team or product that is the subject of the video. I'm still new to C9, and I'm learning that one of the perks is that the job exposes you to so many interesting people and projects. I am a happy little man indeed.)

When you're done here, head over to 10 to see their coverage of the same product, but from a different angle.

Technology Roundtable #1

Rory — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 19:28:24 GMT

You might know him from the .NET Show, but Robert Hess is giving something else a try over here on Channel 9.

It's a new show called "Technology Roundtable", and it's a sort of, well, roundtable discussion between geeks.

To create the show, Robert used that new special 360 degree video camera that MS Research has been putting together. Basically, whoever is speaking will be the person on camera.

So, it's an interesting application of technology as well as a good use of it.

Enjoy, people.

Revisiting WiMo - The Windows Mobile Robot

Rory — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 21:16:22 GMT

Brian Cross is, like, really smart. That's what I've decided.

He woke up one day and felt like building a robot...

...so he did.

He's come along way from his early attempts, and he now has multiple hardware platforms which all tie into a single brain. That brain is a Bluetooth-enabled Windows Mobile SmartPhone. There's also some stuff that runs on a PC which was built with some of the Robotics bits that are available with Microsoft Robotics Studio.

Brian uses the phone to direct the actions of the robots, as well as handle things like communications and image acquisition (yeah - these robots, like the various probes we've launched into space, like to send images back).

I was floored by what I saw. And, for those of you who like what you see here, Brian has posted directions on the official WiMo site which describe how to build a robot similar to the one you'll see in the video.

It's amazing what you can do with a computer, a phone, and a couple hundred bucks nowadays.

Driver Development and Much More With Mike Calligaro

Rory — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 00:38:37 GMT

Mike Calligaro came to Microsoft thirteen years ago to help build a supercomputer. But, two days before his arrival, the project evaporated, leaving Mike on the payroll but without a position.

This isn't an unheard of situation for new hires, but Mike's story, detailing all the different projects he worked on throughout the years, is just fantastic.

We get to hear about his work on the Sega Dreamcast, an early attempt at providing video-on-demand in the home (in 1994!), and the best explanation ever given as to what a device driver is and how they work.

I'm hoping to visit Mike again. I found him through some posts he wrote for the Windows Mobile blog. I found him to be thoughtful and interesting - he was the same in person. One of those hidden gems at the company.

He has more stories to tell, and I hope to get him to divulge more of his past for the camera. People like Mike impress me because of their ability to approach many different disciplines with great success.

This video, I feel, only scratches the surface...

The Voice of Support - Show 010: Managing Xbox and Xbox 360 Support Worldwide

gsamedia — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 16:27:04 GMT

Welcome to the Show # 10 of The Voice of Support!

This week, we sat down with Doug Park, Senior Group Manager for Xbox Support. Doug manages a number of program managers that handle various "lines of business" for Xbox hardware and software support around the globe, which we talk about extensively, and we also discuss some visions of rich media content that could become an integral part of the future of Xbox Support.

Throughout the month of November here, we will be focusing on some really exciting products and devices, including some more shows on the Xbox 360. These will be released on a weekly basis, as we have a LOT of content - so stay tuned!

While we certainly have a lot of support-related content ideas to bring you, we really hope to hear from you, our listeners, about the specific topics you'd like to hear about in future sessions! Please use our Ask for It form to let us know what you think!

LINKS

Download the Transcript

-->Microsoft Support WebCasts

The Voice of Support - Show 009: Supporting Xbox and Xbox 360 Kiosks in Retail Outlets

gsamedia — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 20:13:15 GMT

Welcome to the ninth installment of The Voice of Support!

This week, we sat down with Steve Miles, Retail Support Manager here at Microsoft, to discuss supporting those Xbox and Xbox 360 kiosks you see in various retail stores across the world, and some of the really cool features and new levels of interactivity they provide.

Throughout the month of November here, we will be focusing on some really exciting products and devices, including some more shows on the Xbox 360. These will be released on a weekly basis, as we have a LOT of content - so stay tuned!

While we certainly have a lot of support-related content ideas to bring you, we really hope to hear from you, our listeners, about the specific topics you'd like to hear about in future sessions! Please use our Ask for It form to let us know what you think!

LINKS

Download the Transcript

-->Microsoft Support WebCasts

The Voice of Support - Show 008: A look at supporting Games for Windows

gsamedia — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 17:39:54 GMT

Welcome to the eighth installment of The Voice of Support!

This week, we sat down with Mark Auld, Senior Support Program Manager here at Microsoft, to discuss Games for Windows support, and some past impressions of upcoming technology and titles featured a while back at E3.

Throughout the month of November here, we will be focusing on some really exciting products and devices, including some more shows on the Xbox 360. These will be released on a weekly basis, as we have a LOT of content - so stay tuned!

While we certainly have a lot of support-related content ideas to bring you, we really hope to hear from you, our listeners, about the specific topics you'd like to hear about in future sessions! Please use our Ask for It form to let us know what you think!

LINKS

Download the Transcript

-->Microsoft Support WebCasts