“Visionary” video from Microsoft. I don’t hate these in general as much as Gruber does, but this one is just soulless. Unlike AT&T’s “You will” ads that showed specific ways new technology would enrich our lives (send a fax from the beach, kiss your kid goodnight via video chat, pay your toll without stopping), this video is little more than a coat of futuristic paint over things we can already do — mainly centered around sharing data (OK, the cloud), along with some UI effects left over from “Minority Report.” There’s nothing new here, but Microsoft is presenting it all as something they are in the process of inventing. In the meantime, as I watched the video (or tried to), I was doing many of the things it promised on my iPhone.
Today.