Microsoft spots new opportunities in smart devices

LAS VEGAS: Transforming everyday objects so that they recognize shifting personal preferences is the eventual goal of a new Microsoft Corp. effort that started with smart watches. In an interview with Reuters at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Rick Rashid, senior vice president of Microsoft Research, said the company's Smart Personal Objects Technology, or SPOT, has applications far beyond the watches Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said.

"We need to work with people in many different industries and say 'How can you use this intelligence in many different kinds of devices?'" Rashid said, citing examples like home control systems and medical monitoring devices. The smart watches Gates unveiled are powered by chips made by National Semiconductor Corp. and receive data via an FM radio system developed by Microsoft called DirectBand. Those data streams can be customized, so users can decide what information, such as news, weather or traffic updates, they want to receive.

Microsoft's goal with its "smart object" initiative, Rashid said, is to "be able to have the things around you be knowledgeable about you and be knowledgeable about each other." Rashid, who was previously a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, said SPOT will only work if the devices don't over-reach in terms of functionality.

"If what you were trying to turn your refrigerator into (was) a supercomputer, or your alarm clock into a computer platform ... that would be dumb," he said. Gates on Wednesday showed off high-tech refrigerator magnets that would receive bits of data like school closure schedules or restaurant take-out numbers.

"We still don't know if that makes sense," Rashid said, though it is one of many devices his group is studying for SPOT applications. Beyond smart objects, Rashid said his group was also doing research into data storage and archiving. As data storage costs have fallen dramatically, he said, it becomes easier to keep every bit of data that makes up the average day. "You can now imagine keeping all the things you threw away," he said, adding it would theoretically be possible to archive every conversation a person has over the course of their life in one terabyte of data.