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How Microsoft quietly built the city of the future

microsoft.com

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Re: How Microsoft quietly built the city of the future

#62

Post by pc86 »

alyx wrote: post #23
bretthopper wrote: post #4

This 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.

I know bashing Microsoft is oh-so-tempting, but can you at least try discussing the actual article here?

Is it not relevant that they've copied a design straight from the NY Times?

Re: How Microsoft quietly built the city of the future

#66

Post by Pwnguinz »

duncans wrote: post #46
bretthopper wrote: post #4

This 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 typography is screwed because of the seemingly faulty font stack in: .ncDcParagraph { font-size: 14px; font-family: Segoe,Verdana,sans serif; } I think it should be "Segoe UI" which is a very nice font (on Windows) and it's falling through to Verdana which makes it look dated. Details, details...

I just double checked using Opera Firefly and it seems to be fixed. I see Seqoe UI now :).

Re: How Microsoft quietly built the city of the future

#67

Post by bazzargh »

I'm not going to knock the story (oddly I was checking my home's year on year power reduction just before I read it) but I have to wonder if there is a connection to the previous story about SuperDaE (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5274345)

Specifically the bit that purportedly showed a screenshot of "Control power to individual outlets" on the MS network?

I know, probably coincidence.

Re: How Microsoft quietly built the city of the future

#68

Post by infinitone »

subpixel wrote: post #57
dspeyer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I didn't realize there were more pages. I just thought it was a very short and fluffy article.

What? There's more than just one page? I know MS is a favorite target, but this honestly looks like it was designed by an intern. More importantly, it reads like a jewelry advertorial in an in-flight magazine.

Is anyone able to watch the videos to the end? They seem to stop mid way for me- all of them. And I have a pretty fast connection.

Re: How Microsoft quietly built the city of the future

#69

Post by astangl »

kragen wrote: post #59

> That data has given the team deep insights What a shame they didn't bother to include any of them in the article. Instead they filled it with shitty similes like this: > Microsoft’s buildings were experiencing data dissonance that would make the works of Igor Stravinsky sound like a barbershop quartet. I was no fan of Microsoft in its Gates days, but I can't imagine it would have produced anything as bad as this ar…

When I hear somebody say 900,000 milliseconds, it makes me wonder why he didn't quote the number in nanoseconds or worse.

On top of all the other problems with this puff piece, I couldn't shake the feeling that Microsoft will probably end up leading the way in buildings susceptible to viruses and other malware, consistent with their security record.

My expectation with implementing anything like this is that you immediately pluck some low-hanging fruit (fixing some inefficiencies) when the system goes online, and then it quickly becomes way more difficult to find further inefficiences to eliminate. The article makes it seem like there's an endless stream of inefficiencies they're finding.

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