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How Microsoft quietly built the city of the future
11–20 of 98 posts
Re: How Microsoft quietly built the city of the future
#12If that's a city of the future, then I don't want any part of it...
Re: How Microsoft quietly built the city of the future
#13It might just be me, I found that initial scrolling transition to be brutally distracting. And I wanted to give the article a proper chance, so I read down the page and stumbled over the navigation to the next page, which gave me this error: "We are sorry, the page you requested cannot be found." And then after a few seconds, that page redirected me automatically to a Bing search for this string: "en us news stories…
Hm, I get a similar error when trying to download the whitepaper on the fifth page. I can change pages fine, but when I try and click on the link it does a "download microsoft" Bing search...
> stumbled over the navigation to the next page, which gave me this error
> I get a similar error when trying to download the whitepaper on the fifth page.
So... first time you two have used a Microsoft product then?
Well, in case you're wondering, pretty much all Miscrosoft software is a stolen design wrapped around a buggy core when first released.
Re: How Microsoft quietly built the city of the future
#14In one building garage, exhaust fans had been mistakenly left on for a year (to the tune of $66,000 of wasted energy). Within moments of coming online, the smart buildings solution sniffed out this fault and the problem was corrected.
And also why this work is important. Environmental and conservation arguments aside, it means $66,000 worth of product and services had to be sold to pay for one simple mistake.
In large organizations, these types of mistakes occur every day and can add up quickly.
The article was light on specifics, and the ROC control room doesn't seem to bespeak a 500 acre campus, but actively pursuing the problem looks very interesting.
Re: How Microsoft quietly built the city of the future
#15This is a pretty poor attempt at copying the NY Times design for their Snow Fall project ( http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/#/?part=tunne... ). It's lacking the top nav and the typography is terrible. Generally just lacks some polish and execution.
The page looks like a wreck. It's like it's trying to look cool and tripping over itself.
This is how nearly all of Microsoft's products are, at least they are consistent in their user experience.
Re: How Microsoft quietly built the city of the future
#16It might just be me, I found that initial scrolling transition to be brutally distracting. And I wanted to give the article a proper chance, so I read down the page and stumbled over the navigation to the next page, which gave me this error: "We are sorry, the page you requested cannot be found." And then after a few seconds, that page redirected me automatically to a Bing search for this string: "en us news stories…
The navigation was so poorly executed that I didn't even realize there was more than one page! I admire people experimenting, but this feels like taking the idea 80% of the way there, and just kind of leaving things unrefined/unusable.
Re: How Microsoft quietly built the city of the future
#17If that's a city of the future, then I don't want any part of it...
Why not? Just curious
Re: How Microsoft quietly built the city of the future
#18This is what happens when the maintenance crew finds the keys to R&D.
Re: How Microsoft quietly built the city of the future
#19If that's a city of the future, then I don't want any part of it...
Agreed. As you can see from the image at the top, the "city" they built is a sprawling mess of buildings quite far from the city (Seattle, in the background). Depending on your team, you may need to frequently take Shuttle Connect to get to meetings, or walk a mile or more. If you live within walking distance from campus, you'll be dependent on a car for everything else. There's just endless cookie cutter suburbia around there.
Re: How Microsoft quietly built the city of the future
#20This is a pretty poor attempt at copying the NY Times design for their Snow Fall project ( http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/#/?part=tunne... ). It's lacking the top nav and the typography is terrible. Generally just lacks some polish and execution.
That was the same thought I had. The worst part is that they split it up into "chapters" which are really just one page of text and a pic each. The whole point of these designs is to be able to scroll down through the whole story like you were casually flipping a magazine. Instead, the MS article makes you click a "next chapter" link at the bottom right.