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Canada’s PM rocks Microsoft’s CEO Summit

Justin Trudeau at Microsoft Canada
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at the opening of the Microsoft Canada Excellence Centre in Vancouver in June 2016. Microsoft President Brad Smith is beside Trudeau. (Microsoft via YouTube)

So far, this year’s Microsoft CEO Summit has been all about Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s talk today, but there’s been precious little information available about who else is attending – and Trudeau may be one of the big reasons why.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates created the annual summit back in 1997, to give global business leaders an opportunity to share their experiences and learn about new technologies that will have an impact on business in the future. The event’s attendee list is kept largely confidential, as is the substance of the discussions.

This year, Microsoft says the summit’s two themes are “trust in technology” (as in cybersecurity, international hacking, privacy and the flow of data) and “the race to space” (as in privately funded space efforts such as Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket venture).

Usually, Microsoft lists a few folks who are attending the summit on the company’s Redmond campus, just to give a sense of the event’s cachet. For example, last year’s headliners included Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett and Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson (who is now the Trump administration’s secretary of state)

This year, however, the spotlight has fallen almost exclusively on the hunky 45-year-old Trudeau, the first sitting head of government or state to address the summit. Microsoft isn’t saying anything about the other 140-plus VIPs attending the discussions. “Out of respect for the privacy of our guests, we are not providing any additional information,” a Microsoft spokesperson told GeekWire via email.

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How a robo-trap zeroes in on Zika mosquitoes

Mosquito trap
Microsoft researcher Ethan Jackson sets up a robotic mosquito trap in Grenada. (Microsoft Photo)

BOSTON – Microsoft’s robotic mosquito trap is so smart it can tell one insect species from another – and that’s good news for scientists fighting the Zika virus, dengue fever and other mosquito-borne maladies.

It can also tell if you’re buzzing an electric toothbrush in its vicinity.

The toothbrush was used to dramatic effect today by Ethan Jackson, a Microsoft researcher from Redmond, Wash.

Jackson heads up Project Premonition, a research effort aimed at giving epidemiologists smarter tools for tracking disease outbreaks. Today he showed how the high-tech trap works at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting in Boston.

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Scientists use bands and Bing for sleep study

Sleepy woman
A study based on data from 30,000 users of Microsoft Bands confirms that sleep deprivation leads to reduced cognitive performance, at least when using the Bing search engine. (Bigstock Photo)

It may not be surprising that lack of sleep leaves you less sharp, but researchers have now quantified the effect with a surprisingly large sample: More than 30,000 people who wear Microsoft’s fitness bands and use Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

The results of the study suggest that a couple of short nights can slow you down for days afterward.

“When you don’t sleep well, it affects your cognitive performance, which means your work performance and lots of other things,” lead study author Tim Althoff said in a report on the Microsoft Next blog.

Althoff, who’s working on his Ph.D. in computer science at Stanford University, led the research team last summer during an internship at Microsoft’s research lab in Redmond, Wash. The resulting paper is to be presented in April at this year’s World Wide Web Conference in Perth, Australia.

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Microsoft’s HoloLens joins the military

Marine with HoloLens
Marines test a HoloLens headset during a training exercise meant to strengthen small-unit decision making at Camp Lejeune, N.C. (USMC Photo / Sgt. Kaitlyn V. Klein)

Microsoft’s HoloLens augmented-reality headsets have been used to fight video-game aliens in space, but now they’ve been enlisted for wargames on Earth as well.

The HoloLens system was incorporated into a platform known as the Augmented Immersive Team Trainer that lets Marines plan missions and conduct “what-if” simulations while looking at a real-world terrain.

The wargaming software, which is called Interactive Tactical Decision Game, or I-TDG, can overlay a view of the environment with virtual objects ranging from ground vehicles and aircraft to explosions and other battlefield effects.

The system was used in November during a training exercise at Camp Lejeune, N.C., conducted by the 2nd Battalion, 6th Marlnes – 2/6, also known as “the Spartans.”

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Microsoft’s CEO sees AI’s down side for jobs

Satya Nadella
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella talks about the “upscaling” effect of AI at the DLD tech conference in Munich. (DLD via YouTube)

Experts on employment trends have long raised concerns about how job markets are being disrupted so quickly by artificial intelligence and automation are disrupting the job market, and now it sounds as if Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella shares those concerns.

Nadella has made AI one of the pillars of Microsoft’s future growth. But during today’s fireside chat at the DLD tech conference in Munich, he acknowledged that the technology comes with moral imperatives attached. It’s not enough to create AI tools that make more money for Microsoft, he said.

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How augmented reality can find your keys

Image: AR headset
This cartoon shows a user wearing a headset that’s part of a system to keep track of items such as keys (102). The headset display could highlight the location of the keys even if they end up hidden under a sheaf of papers or lost between the cushions of a couch. (Microsoft Illustration via USPTO)

Microsoft expects its HoloLens augmented-reality headset to guide you through complicated tasks in the workplace, but someday you could also use it around the house to find misplaced items, play games – and even watch movies on a virtual big screen.

The possibilities for augmented reality, or AR, are laid out in a series of patents and patent applications published over the past month or so.

Augmented reality is a cousin of virtual reality. VR creates a complete computer-generated environment, viewed through headsets ranging from the high-end Oculus Rift and HTC Vive to the smartphone-based Google Daydream and Samsung Gear systems. AR systems like Microsoft’s HoloLens goes one step further, blending computer-generated imagery with the real-life scene that’s in front of you.

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Microsoft’s chatbot makes MIT’s worst-tech list

Tay
Tay turned into a big controversy for Microsoft. (Microsoft Illustration)

Tay, the Microsoft chatbot that pranksters trained to spew racist comments, has joined the likes of the Apple Watch and the fire-prone Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone on MIT Technology Review’s list of 2016’s biggest technology failures.

Tay had its day back in March, when it was touted as a millennial-minded AI agent that could learn more about the world through its conversations with users. It learned about human nature all too well: Mischief-makers fed its artificial mind with cuss words, racism, Nazi sentiments and conspiracy theories. Within 24 hours, Microsoft had to pull Tay offline.

Other technological missteps were rated as fails because they didn’t take off as expected, as was the case for Apple’s smartwatch; or because they took off in flames, like the batteries in the Samsung phone.

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Microsoft bets big on quantum computers

Todd Holmdahl
Microsoft executive Todd Holmdahl is leading the effort to create scalable quantum hardware and software. (Red Box Pictures via Microsoft / Scott Eklund)

Microsoft says it’s moving ahead from just talking about quantum computing to building an actual quantum computer, based on the physics that won a Nobel Prize this year.

The project will be headed by longtime Microsoft executive Todd Holmdahl, who previously played key roles in developing the Xbox gaming console, the Kinect motion sensor and the HoloLens augmented-reality system. Now he’s corporate vice president of Microsoft’s quantum program.

“I think we’re at an inflection point in which we are ready to go from research to engineering,” Holmdahl said in a Microsoft blog posting about the project on Nov. 20.

Microsoft isn’t alone in the field: For several years, Google has been working with NASA and a Vancouver-area company called D-Wave to evaluate quantum computer designs.

But neither is Microsoft a newcomer in the field: The Redmond-based software giant has had researchers exploring the quantum frontier for more than 15 years.

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Microsoft moonshots aim to debug cancer

Cancer moonshot
Microsoft’s “cancer moonshot” effort aims to program cells like computers. (Credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft researchers are doing a bug bash on cancer, complete with software code names like “Project Hanover.”

Some of them are actually drilling down into our genetic code, looking for ways to reprogram the immune system to combat cancer cells more effectively.

“If you can do computing with biological systems, then you can transfer what we’ve learned in traditional computing into medical or biotechnology applications,” Microsoft’s Neil Dalchau says in the company’s in-depth report about its cancer moonshots.

Others are enlisting the power of cloud computing to identify which treatment would work best for a particular cancer patient, based on his or her personalized medical profile.

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Microsoft adds George Takei to HoloLens menu

Image: George Takei as Actiongram
George Takei, in the orange sweater, appears as an Actiongram character in a video recorded with HoloLens mixed-reality capture. (Credit: Microsoft)

Want to put a little George Takei in your living room? Microsoft can make it so, thanks to the Actiongram app for its HoloLens mixed-reality headset.

Takei, who played Mr. Sulu in the “Star Trek” original series 50 years ago, makes his debut as an Actiongram character just in time for today’s release of an open beta version of the app for developers.

Like Actiongram’s other characters, Takei’s 3-D projected image can be inserted into the HoloLens view of a real-world environment. You can record the video of the resulting interactions, and share it with your friends and the rest of the world.

Microsoft’s aim is to give HoloLens users the ability to wield computer-generated video effects as adroitly as a bare-chested Sulu wielded a rapier in “The Naked Time.” As Takei would say: Oh myyyyy!

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