Pointing the way forward for Microsoft research

THE TECH sector has seen much innovation in recent years, as smartphone popularity explodes and new devices such as tablets make an impression in the market.

Computers have become more ubiquitous in our daily lives, being used in everything from our smartphones to our cars.

As Microsoft prepares to unveil the next version of its operating system, Windows 8, the definition of what constitutes a computer is about to get even more blurred.

Bill Buxton is principal researcher at Microsoft Research, an initiative that is involved in some of the company’s major innovations, such as Kinect and Surface.

The 63-year-old French Canadian’s CV is impressive. He is a respected author on design and innovation, and he has also had his own design and consulting company.

Buxton began working with Microsoft in 2005, a couple of years after parting ways with Alias|Wavefront, where he was chief scientist. He paints a picture of a future where the computer as we currently known it will cease to exist. They will instead be embedded into the environment around us – our cars, our offices, our wallets.

“The computer is going to become ever more hidden,” he says. “One day, nobody will be buying a computer.”

Microsoft’s reputation as an innovator has taken somewhat of a hammering in recent months, with a Vanity Fair article announcing that it had “lost its mojo”. Why, then, did Buxton opt to work with the firm?

“In research, it’s all about who you get to play with. It’s like football: if you were in the Netherlands you’d want to play with Ajax. Everything else works out if you’re happy and you love what you’re doing, and you care about the people you’re doing it with,” he says.

“Microsoft had a really interesting appeal. I’m a child of the 1960s and I still have that element in me, the naivety and also the arrogance maybe you can help change the world.

“It struck me that if you could in fact help bring some insight about design and some of the human aspects of technology – what if you actually succeeded? There are a billion people a day who use the products.”

When you think of innovative design, Microsoft is not usually the first company that springs to mind. But that was precisely what piqued his interest, he says.

“Why would you go to a place that had great design and was executing well on that side of things? Because then you never find out if you are any good.

“It’s a great research environment in a place where you can challenge with the skills built and see if you can come and help a company through change. Microsoft was in transition, and I wanted to see it first hand.”

Getting overlooked may not necessarily be a bad thing either, he says.

“I’d rather surprise people because they don’t expect a lot and over-deliver, than have them expect the world and no matter what, you’re almost doomed to fail.

“Perceptions once established are hard to change, both in terms of how good you are and also in terms of how stodgy you are. But my sense is that the pendulum will continue to swing.”

Microsoft may still be trying to shift its “stodgy” reputation but the company is certainly trying to innovate.

Windows 8 is its first PC operating system optimised for touch and, although it’s not quite clear how consumers will take to the new technology, Microsoft seems confident that it will be a success once people see it in action.

Trying to get such a large organisation with so many different elements to embrace change hasn’t been as difficult as might have been expected.

Buxton compares it to the counties in Ireland: the accents are different, but they’re still the same at heart.

“There’s a really interesting shift at all levels of the company in terms of culture, attitudes to users and attitudes to design. The company has to continue to evolve or suffer the consequences.

“There’s huge enthusiasm. The challenge is knowing where to go and how to get there. But I don’t think you need to convince anyone that things need to keep evolving.”

The company’s most notable shift in its video games division was its motion controller Kinect, which combines voice and gesture control. At the last count, Kinect had sold more than 19 million peripherals, with an install base of 67 million Xbox 360 consoles.

But Buxton says the potential for Kinect extends beyond the games console, something that Microsoft openly acknowledged when it decided to open up the platform to software developers, through its Kinect for Windows SDK.

The device had only just landed when enterprising developers hacked it to work with a variety of applications, from photo manipulation to Kinect-controlled email.

“I think it’s great that if other people can teach us stuff about our products,” he says. “I think that the reaction and how Microsoft responded to the hacker community in terms of embracing it, the cultural change reflected in that, it might be more significant than any technological change that was in Kinect itself.”

Kinect may only be scratching the surface. In years to come, we could see the technology built in to motors in the future, Buxton says.

Current keyless entry to cars solves a problem – having to physically use car keys – but technology that recognises your movement and position could be used, for example, to open car doors when your hands are full.

It shows how designing devices and software that have multiple applications in different situations can present different challenges. Limitations have to be taken into account, with Buxton pointing to the car as an example.

Microsoft has worked with a number of motor firms, including Ford, to integrate Microsoft technology into their vehicles. The Sync system is a voice activated in-car entertainment and communications system, using Microsoft’s Windows Embedded Automotive platform.

Buxton notes that the rush to multi-touch caused manufacturers to use the technology in areas where it wasn’t really suitable – including in car systems.

He isn’t in favour of multi-touch navigation and entertainment systems on the dashboard of cars in reach of the driver.

“The whole notion of these interfaces is that it takes both your hands and your eyes to operate them,” he says.

Previous systems relied on switches and controls; different shapes allowed drivers to distinguish between a volume button and the air-conditioning controls without taking their eyes off the road.

“Instead of being a check box, a must-have on a marketing sheet, you should only use touch when it’s appropriate.”

Microsoft’s Windows phones have been designed to work with a speech-based interface when driving, but once the car has stopped they can be used as normal. It’s a seamless and smooth handoff; users are unaware of the changes in interaction style and technology.

With an avid interest in design, Buxton has amassed a significant collection of gadgets over the years.

One of the notable watches in his collection is a Casio watch with a capacitive touchscreen that dates from 1984 – the same year that Apple’s first Macintosh was released and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was born.

Buxton uses this as an example of what was achieved almost 30 years ago, and what current technology could be capable of now.

There is no point in patting ourselves on the back over the achievements of the past few years, he comments, when something like this was available in the early 1980s, and for under $100. It helps keep things in perspective. “What have we been doing for the past 30 years?”

Throughout the entire process, however, Buxton follows one principle.

“It’s not about the technology. It’s about you. The technology that matters is the technology of the human being.

“A huge amount of your apps, how they’re going to be, is going to be shaped by the cognitive, sensory and motor skills of the user. There’s a commonality about that because we all share the same properties, no matter what technology we’re using.

“For me it’s like which device makes best use of that technology.

“I don’t want to make the most efficient use of the computer; I want to make the most efficient use of the human. How do you optimise the human user?”