Anoop Gupta's job title at Microsoft is "Distinguished Scientist." This means that he and the other ten employees who bear this title are "at the highest level of non- executive research achievement, advancing the state of the art of computer science and engineering." Gupta's job however is rather more complicated.
As number 2 in Microsoft Research (MSR), and as someone who, in his fourteen years at the company, has occupied key positions of strategic importance for its future, his task is to understand research projects in sufficient depth to make connections between the various research disciplines and Microsoft's strategy.
A classic opportunity for fulfilling this task is gesture recognition, which Microsoft provides by adding Kinect to its Xbox 360 games console. Gupta sees beyond the experience that the product currently gives to gamers. "The impact of gesture recognition will make a significant change to access to computing devices generally," he says in an interview with "Globes" during a visit to Israel. "Kinect is a first step, and there's still a long way to go in natural interaction between people and computers." As far as the difficulties in the world of computing are concerned, according to Microsoft's vision, Kinect and the technology behind it can save the day.
The future of the natural interface between has become part of Microsoft's general concept of computer devices of the future. "Even though we have a personal telephone in our pockets, the telephone does nothing for us. It won't find the friend who has a birthday and give us a warning. Gesture recognition and the natural interface will enable computers and technology to be not just behind the scenes, but to work for people, not only according to commands."
Gupta is a member of a delegation of ten senior Microsoft people in Israel for a week. During the visit, the delegation members will learn about the various research and development activities underway at Microsoft's Israel R&D Center, will meet venture capital funds, academics, entrepreneurs, and start-up companies. The trip includes a traditional visit to GarageGeeks in Holon.
Gupta has good reason to show an interest in what's happening in the Israeli high-tech industry, and not just from the point of view of the local R&D center. Kinect, which broke the Guinness record, and Microsoft's own records, as the best selling gadget of all time, is based on Israeli technology that Microsoft obtained from start-up company PrimeSense and from the acquisition of the IP and part of the activity of 3DV, also an Israeli company.
"We made a lot of improvements on the technology we received from PrimeSense," says Gupta, stressing Microsoft's own part in the popular gaming device. Microsoft will in due course provide its technology to the developers.
In June, it has announced, it will provide development tools (SDK) that will enable applications developers to use the technology infrastructure produced around the Kinect in their own applications. Gupta sees the technology being used in robotics, medical equipment, and industrial applications. "It isn't intended only for games, but for a wealth of different applications," he says.
Microsoft is traditionally an end-user company. Today, the change in the computing set-ups of end-users does not allow the company to think that the PC will continue to be the natural environment for applications that will be developed.
"The future of the personal computer is something developing over time," says Gupta. According to his vision, devices will not be standalone, but will be part of a general computing environment, in which communications are transparent between devices that are used in whatever way is most appropriate to the user's needs.
Another change will come from the direction of consumption of data, which are out there in data centers around the world (cloud computing), and which can be accessed via the Internet. Microsoft's approach is that a substantial portion of the performance of memory resources and data will continue to be on the personal computing device. "There will always be a trade-off between the end computing device and cloud computing," says Gupta. "There will things carried out here, and things suitable for there, but the connection between in the future will be much more transparent."
And where will Microsoft find itself in this world? Will it still be as the world's biggest software provider, or perhaps in another role? "Microsoft can stand out on both the software and hardware side to bring this vision to reality," says Gupta. "We have seen this kind of thing in our activity in television, or in the investments we have made recently."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 6, 2011
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