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Third and last day (at least for us) of the WPC Microsoft conference in Washington, with the highly anticipated keynote Satya Nadella, the new CEO of computer giant.
The future of the future according Satya Nadella
An ultimately disappointing keynote, made predominantly of generalities and "vision", as it has already been exposed by Nadella at previous conferences after taking office. Nothing new then, and a strange feeling, that of someone who is projected in the future so that he forgets this, and it almost seems that Microsoft is still in a startup project would . Although a concrete discourse, with the cornerstone mobile and the cloud, but that gives the impression of being disconnected from the present, when we know - but this remains to be confirmed - a gigantic social is preparing the side of Redmond for the removal of 12,000 posts, and could be announced early next week.
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The roadmap smartphones and tablets
Before the keynote, Microsoft reiterated its roadmap for the coming months on end, extending already made a presentation Monday. Nokia Windows Phone and tablet side, the range available since July 1 is outlined below:
Lumia tablet in 2520 - 10.1-inch screen 1920 x 1080p - 549 euros (149 euros keyboard option)
phablette Lumia 1520 - 6 inch 1920 x 1080p - 549 euros
phablette Lumia 1320 - 6-inch screen 1280 x 720p - 299 euros
smartphone Lumia 930 - 5-inch display 1920 x 1080p - 549 euros
Lumia 635 smartphone - 4.5-inch screen 854 x 480p - 169 euros
Lumia 630 smartphone Dual SIM - 4.5 inch screen 854 x 480p - 169 euros
smartphone Lumia 630 Single SIM - 4.5 inch screen 854 x 480p - 169 euros
Supplemented by a range smartphones "low cost" for emerging markets and made by Asian manufacturers like Micromax, Xolo (two Indian manufacturers) or Toshiba. Regarding tablets, an interesting novelty was announced, but no release date rate: Living a Windows 7-inch tablet Toshiba signed.
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In the left hand of the gentleman, the Toshiba tablet 7 inch
Next step: the connected objects
Among the points raised in the final keynote, in addition to opening new Microsoft that turns former competitors into partners, and productivity in the heart of the argument to industry, we particularly note the two live demonstrations in front of the 14,000 people present Verizon Arena located in the heart of Washington (a quarter of an hour to walk from the White House), the first on connected devices, in which the operator of an elevator company can see in real time animation in virtual reality all the movements of all elevators in the world, with the incredible amount of data that these movements represent, which can be exploited for marketing purposes, and security.
Skype Translator, an interpreter in the clouds
The second demo, even more impressive, allowed to see in action the future version of Skype, Skype Translator, which as its name suggests, reflects real-time video conversations between two people who do not speak the same language. A cloud-based technology (these are the machines on Microsoft's servers doing the work, not your PC) and using the Machine Learning dear to Microsoft, namely algorithms "learners" who enhanced over their use. How does it work in practice? You start Slype Translator, you make your call, and you speak in your language. Skype then translates your words and reads them with a synthesized voice to the other party, in his language. It meets you in your language and translated into Slype yours, and so on. It takes a few microseconds latency for the translation, but the result is astonishing: during the demo, two speakers, one English, on stage, and the other German, Germany, each have conversed in their language effortlessly particular speech, and Skype Translator was on the translation on the fly, with almost zero error rate. Moreover, when the young German woman, who proudly wore the jersey of the Mannschaft, sent in the language of Goethe in his English interviewer that "the" German team scored more goals in a match than that of England in two World Cups " , Skype was responsible for the translation, sparking hilarity in the Arena.
Beautiful? True, but we enflammons not, it's just a prototype. Skype Translator is not yet available, only works with three languages, namely English, German and more bizarrely, Chinese (size of market forces, probably), and if the demo this morning was convincing between only two people enjoying a line with a maximum throughput certainly, one wonders what will be the performance of the system if thousands or millions of people use it simultaneously, in terms of processing time conversations in the cloud.
Finally, another disappointment: it had been reported that Microsoft would be working on a watch or a bracelet connected running Windows Phone, iOS and Android, and that the presentation would be made at the conference. We did not see any of that, but it's certainly a postponement, as the objects appear to be connected to the heart of attention at Microsoft, according to its CEO.