Microsoft's Office team has released a video of what they think the future of computing will look like. Check it out:
The video, entitled "Productivity Future Vision (2011)," shows a world of augmented reality, seamless sharing between remote screens, and lots of white furniture. It was posted to the Microsoft Office Labs website and details "how we will create and share content; collaborate across teams, organizations and networks; and how we will gain contextually relevant and anticipative insights based on preferences and intent." Most teasingly, Microsft predicts that this is how we will interact in "5-10 years" (though one of these technologies will be out in one year:The Windows 8 Metro operating system, coming in 2012 and featured in some form on most of the devices shown. Check out the radical redesign of the forthcoming touch-friendly Windows 8 here).
Microsoft Office Labs shared a similar "productivity vision" of the future in 2009; aesthetically things look very much like the most recent prognostication, with lots of pico projections, seamless sharing, paper-thin screens, the ability to write on thin air, and, yes, white furniture.
Microsoft's vision of the future comes on the heels of Nokia's concept Kinetic Smartphone, a bendable plastic device that is garnering lots of buzz over in England; Microsoft also had a buzzy demo of its own with a video of a concept HoloDesk, an interactive 3D display from its Sensors and Devices Group, earlier this week.
Still hungry for visions of the future? In May 2011 an entrepreneur unveiled a paper-thin phone similar to the ones in the Microsoft video; for 17 more concept smartphones, flip through this wild slideshow that HuffPost did in early 2010.