Microsoft Research - Strides in Education
This was probably the best session of the morning keynote on Wednesday. This theme here was to discuss about the advances made by Microsoft working with University partners on the front of information delivery and access over modern devices (like the Tablet PC).
The demos consisted of some applications developed by Brown University and MIT that allows students to ink out data on the Tablet PC and then have the application link-up to powerful simulation software like MatLab to render the results. For example, we had one demo, wherein the equations for a pendulum were inked out on the tablet and then a diagram of the pendulum was also drawn. Then by making a few strokes of the pen, which are specific to the application, the pendulum starts to occilate according to the equation in real-time!! Man, imagine the learning power that this puts into the hands of students. In my days, we used to imagine how things would work and now, students, using these powerful devices, can actually see them work. This is really exiciting!!
Another demo along the same lines was given, which is very relevant to the industry that I work in: Higher Education. Here, students often attend various classes and interact with fellow students and the professors and the demo showed how information sharing can happen between all the parties involved using real-time video, messaging and ink technologies. A real eye-opener for what's to come.
If you are interested in knowing what's happening at Microsoft Research, visit research.microsoft.com.