Microsoft Research - ReadWriteWeb http://www.readwriteweb.com/feeds/tag/Microsoft Research en Copyright 2009 Richard MacManus readwriteweb@gmail.com Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:30:40 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=4.23-en http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Mr. Microphone 2.0: Microsoft Songsmith Puts Even the Worst Lyrics to Music imgMSSongsmith.jpgLike to sing in the shower or in the car? Want to subject others to your incoherent warblings as if they were a real song? Microsoft Songsmith may be for you. And if you're a professional lyricist, musician, or someone with real musical talent? Songsmith may be incredibly helpful for you, too.

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]]> The technology is actually quite impressive. Songsmith takes a cappella vocals - no matter how disjointed - and interprets a musical melody to lay behind them. Meaning? Meaning that with no musical talent whatsoever, you can now compose, record, and share songs with whomever is willing to listen.

But what if you actually have talent? Songsmith could be of potential use to you, too.

"Songwriters can use Songsmith as an 'intelligent scratchpad' to work with new melodies, quickly turning your scratch recordings of new ideas into richer, deeper explorations. Musicians can also play instruments right into Songsmith, instead of singing."

No doubt a great deal of research went into the development of the product, and it probably has some very interesting potential applications. But, I must admit, after watching the promo video, I'm having a hard time clearing my head enough to figure out what those uses might be.

imgSongsmithPromo.jpg

Who knows? This might be another one of those Seinfeld things.

Scoble has just posted an interview and demo with two researchers from Microsoft - who coincidentally also star in the promo video. They provide additional insight on the product and highlight some of its potential applications.

Interested users can download a trial version from Microsoft Research. The product is available for purchase for $29.95 US.

Something tells me that the American Idol tryouts just got a lot more interesting.

]]>Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/microsoft_songsmith_mr_microphone_20.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/microsoft_songsmith_mr_microphone_20.php music Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:17:28 -0800 Rick Turoczy Microsoft's World Wide Telescope Demo Video Microsoft's World Wide Telescope is a web connected desktop app that renders a tiled tour of high resolution, zoomable images of the entire night sky, woven together from a number of different telescopes and satellites. It leverages a "3D teraserver visualization engine." Robert Scoble's first interview at Fast Company TV is with Curtis Wong and Jonathan Fay, who worked on the project.

We've embedded the demo video below because the product is likely to be one of historic proportions and we thought our readers would appreciate the opportunity to see it.

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]]> The whole thing is pretty remarkable and worth a look. The scaling of huge images down to something that users can watch and navigate on a laptop is the crux of the innovation. The program isn't available yet but should be soon. User generated tours should produce some fascinating education.

The video below gets into the action with live screens of the Telescope about 25% of the way through. A basic discussion of the technical requirements, with engineer David Fay, starts about 80% of the way through (sorry, the FC video player is awful so now time stamps are available). Full screen view, in the bottom right, is pretty good.


]]>Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/microsofts_world_wide_telescope_demo_video.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/microsofts_world_wide_telescope_demo_video.php Products Mon, 03 Mar 2008 07:30:34 -0800 Marshall Kirkpatrick