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Windows Insider Podcast

Microsoft Windows Insider Program

The Windows Insider Team is taking the podcast airwaves to share all things future of Windows, Insider community and beyond

  • 51 episodes
  • Updated Dec 8, 2021

Episodes51

  • Jan 24, 2018 · 29 min

    Mixed Reality Part 2: Creators

    How is Mixed Reality (MR) changing the way we experience the world? We explore this question with three creators using MR to entertain, connect, and assist people with different abilities. First, we chat with Mia Tramz, Managing Editor at LIFE VR, about using virtual reality to travel the world. Then we catch up with Zach Clark, a veteran who was injured in combat and is now using HoloLens to help people with visual impairments and brain injuries navigate hospital settings. Finally, Microsoft's Dona Sarkar and Spencer Reynolds take us on a tour of becoming a virtual hologram via Microsoft's Mixed Reality Capture Studios. Episode transcript JASON HOWARD: Welcome to the Windows Insider Podcast. You are listening to Episode 11 part two, in our series on mixed reality. Today, we're talking to creators in the mixed reality space. Mixed reality, also known as MR, is the term for experiences where physical and digital objects coexist and interact in real time. We can reach these experiences through a combination of headsets, computers, and external sensors, or more sophisticated technology like the HoloLens. Microsoft, and Windows in particular, has been a leader in enabling mixed reality experiences. In fact, Windows 10 was built from the ground up to support innovations in mixed reality. To learn more about Microsoft's commitment to MR, check out part one in our series on mixed reality. Hardware and software technology are both important for mixed reality, but so is the context available on the platform. Creators in MR are using it to tell stories, enable innovation, and even provide medical care. We're still discovering all the ways MR could impact our lives. Our first guest today talks to me about the challenges and opportunities of creating entertainment content for virtual reality platforms. She's calling in from her office in New York where she develops mixed reality content for Time, Incorporated, the media giant behind more than 100 magazine brands and websites, names you've probably heard of like Sports Illustrated, and Time Magazine. MIA TRAMZ: My name is Mia Tramz. I'm the Managing Editor of Life VR, and newly Time's Special Projects Editor for Time Magazine. I develop and produce VR and AR experiences for all Time, Inc. brands. So that includes Time, but also Sports Illustrated, People, EW, Travel & Leisure, Food & Wine, Essence & Style, the list goes on and on and on. And I also lead the company's strategy in both markets. JASON HOWARD: Wow, it sounds like you have quite the reach. MIA TRAMZ: I do, I do. I get to do a lot of fun things and wear many hats. JASON HOWARD: So officially you are Managing Editor for VR Content. What's a typical day like for you. MIA TRAMZ: On the one hand, I can sit down with the editors from pretty much any of our titles from Time to People to Sports Illustrated, and brainstorm, you know, big ambitious and smaller, quicker turn VR, AR, and 360 projects, or I can go out into the world and find projects that align well with our brands, and kind of integrate those editorial teams into the development of, you know, projects that are coming to us from the outside. And then I also get to come up with a lot of projects on my own, which has been a really fun part of the job. We create for and publish across many platforms, everything from Facebook 360 to Samsung Gear to our Life VR Cardboard app, which is available for free for iOS and Android -- do my little plug -- to Oculus and Vive, which are, you know, at the higher end of the spectrum. We are also very newly a Microsoft MR launch partner, so we have a Life VR app on the new Windows MR platform. And, you know, each of those platforms requires an understanding of what works best on that particular device, understanding the different types of production that it takes to create some effective for those different platforms. So I get to work a bunch of different muscles, and I'm constantly learning and being thrown into new situations. It's a really fascinating job. JASON HOWARD: No doubt that keeps it interesting and entertaining. So you've mentioned, you know, the broad variety of platforms that you engage users across, like the Life brand itself has a long history of telling stories across a ton of different subjects, you know, everything from news to sports, fashion and food, of course. How does your approach in telling stories in the virtual reality space differ from telling stories with traditional means like video or a magazine feature. MIA TRAMZ: Well, I'll answer that in sort of an indirect way. Life VR is meant to be an extension of the Life Magazine brand. When this initiative was, you know, being thought up in our company, one of the issues they were trying to solve for was going into VR as a publishing company was distribution. It's one of the hardest parts of being a creator in the VR space right now, getting eyeballs on what you're creating. And what they decided was instead of, you know, developing separate VR apps for People and Time and Sports Illustrated, it would make more sense to create an umbrella brand that all of that content rolls under, so that if you went to go watch a Sports Illustrated experience, you might come across a People experience that you were interested in or a Time experience while you're in that environment. And that's what the Life VR app is. But the reason they gave it the Life name I think is really interesting. They went back and found the original prospectus that Henry Luce, who founded Time and Life Magazine, wrote for Life. And if you read it, it reads like a VR pitch. He's talking about taking you to places that you couldn't see otherwise, to see the shadows on the moon and the depths of the jungle and to walk through walls. And if you think about the format of Life Magazine, you know, it was those huge, beautiful, printed pages, and gorgeous, huge photographs. It was about as immersive as you could get with a print product. And he was giving you a window onto the world that you wouldn't have had otherwise. So I think in creating a Life VR brand we were taking the legacy of our storytelling, which was to transport our readers to all the places in the world that they can't get to otherwise, and really fulfilling what we think the promise of VR can be with the brands of storytelling that we're so well-known for. JASON HOWARD: So how would you convince somebody who normally prefers traditional media, for example, like a print magazine or whatnot, to give this virtual reality thing a try. MIA TRAMZ: This is a person I have to convince that I am physically with, I would just show them a few VR pieces, and that's something that I do a lot in my job. I do a lot of VR demos. And my thought there is it's pretty immediate when you see a good VR experience for the first time. There's not much selling that I would have to do. You kind of just get it. But in terms of our readership, this is something that we think about a lot. There's a lot of consumer adoption hurdles when it comes to VR. If I make a project and someone comes across in like their Facebook feed, or if they're hearing about it from a friend, that project needs to be interesting and compelling enough that they're not only going to go out and find the app to watch it and that they then have to download, but they're also either going to find or buy a VR headset to watch it in, and then they're going to take some of their TV time to sit down and watch this thing that I've produced. So from the get-go the projects have to really excite the viewer enough to do all of those things to watch them. And then once they get through all those hurdles, you have to kind of deliver on what the promise of the projects seem to be. So for example, instead of turning out a high volume of content that maybe isn't quite as ambitious, what we've focused on is tackling really big projects that if you came across them on any channel that you're getting your content from, or if you heard about it from a friend, if you heard about this project, you would feel like you had to see it. So, for example, Capturing Everest was one of our projects that we released with Sports Illustrated in May of this year, and it's the first bottom to top climb of Mt. Everest in VR as a documentary VR series. We released it in four episodes, and we start by following three really amazing climbers. One of our climbers is Jeff Glasbrenner. He was the first American amputee to summit Everest with our climb. Then we have Lisa White, who's a cancer survivor. She was in chemotherapy while she was training to climb Everest. And then after she finished, therapy went straight to Nepal in order to climb. And then we have some really amazing Sherpas and mountaineers that are helping them reach the summit. That project was both a VR experience, it was a print story and a cover story for Sports Illustrated. We published it as a series of 360 videos on Sports Illustrated's website. And then there's also a whole augmented reality feature that we launched with that issue of SI. If you came across that project, my hope is that it's so cool and it's so exciting that you're willing to go through all of the hurdles needed to actually watch it. It's really about capturing people's imagination and making the case to them that this is worth your investment of time, regardless of whether you're familiar with the technology or not. JASON HOWARD: So obviously making the path and taking the trek to go to Everest is something that while some people do, there's a lot of people that won't have that opportunity in their life. Which kind of leads me into the next thing that I want to ask you about. Life VR has done a ton of work for travel publications, including recently a virtual experience for Vancouver, BC in Travel & Leisure Magazine. Can you tell us a bit about how virtual reality will impact the future of the travel industry. MIA TRAMZ: I think what's really amazing is we can give you a sense of actually being in that place in a way that you can't get with video or with text. And I think the other really exciting thing is with Travel & Leisure in particular, it's not so much about hotels or cruise ships or things like that, there really is kind of an adventure, some spirit there that we can tap into. JASON HOWARD: I can see how that would make a big difference in getting people excited about travel. How do you see virtual reality technology changing entertainment like television or film. MIA TRAMZ: Where I think VR becomes really interesting in the film industry is when filmmakers use it as a standalone tool for storytelling as opposed to something that's augmenting a film that they're creating anyway. So I think the best example of that and the most interesting example of that right now is Alejandro Iñárritu's piece CARNE y ARENA, which is installed at LACMA in Los Angeles. This piece is different in a few ways. It's a physical installation, so it's an experience that you are walking around in. You are watching what is essentially a documentary film in VR. He has recreated an encounter between border agents, immigrants, and refugees at the Mexican-American border, and he's recreated an interaction that actually happened. You are in a way stepping into a documentary film, both visually and physically. And when you think about that, and then you perhaps add in the layer of what if you could do that sort of experience with let's say four or five or your closest friends, and you could see each other in the experience, I think the opportunities that opens up for a filmmaker get really interesting. And I think that the resources that the film industry has in terms of producing something that at that level, with how much it costs, the technology that's needed to pull that off in the way that you would want to see it, it's something that the film industry will be able to do with VR that no other industry really has the infrastructure to tackle in such an interesting way. JASON HOWARD: So we've talked here about the film industry and previously we mentioned a little bit about the travel industry. What other industries do you see virtual reality having a broader impact on. MIA TRAMZ: Well, I think healthcare and education are two really big ones, and they're ones that I'm working on within Time, Inc. I think it's important for your listeners to know that VR is not a new thing. It's been around for over three decades. And it has historically been used as a teaching tool. So for example the military and NASA have used VR for decades to train soldiers and astronauts. It's been used to treat PTSD. It's been used to provide stress relief. And I think in the medical industry now some of the more interesting applications are using VR instead of anesthesia, using VR to help patients have a better overall experience at a hospital. There's some really interesting applications where VR can have inherent value as a tool as opposed to being a means of entertainment. And I think there's been a number of studies conducted by Professor Jeremy Bailinson at Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab around VR in education as it applies to elementary, middle school, and high school. When you get into how could it enhance education on the school level, how can it enhance healthcare, both from a training perspective and a patient experience perspective, I think that there is a ton of promise there for those two industries. JASON HOWARD: Well, I have to say this has been a fascinating chat. Hopefully, our listeners have learned a thing -- I know just from the conversation with you I've picked up a thing or two along the way, so thank you for that. MIA TRAMZ: You're welcome. JASON HOWARD: But before we close out, is there anything else you'd like to share. MIA TRAMZ: You know, I would love to encourage your listeners to seek out our content, either from the Life VR app, which is something you can download onto your smart phone if you have iOS or Android, or of course on the new Windows MR platform. We have a really fun, new application for that headset where you actually get to step into a 3D world that is inspired by the Life archive and see some of our most famous covers as huge buildings. It's a cityscape built out of Life Magazines, and then you can explore some of our other experiences in that environment. It's pretty cool. JASON HOWARD: Awesome. Well, Mia, thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure chatting with you. MIA TRAMZ: You, too. You, too. Thanks for having me. JASON HOWARD: Mixed reality has the potential to transform so many industries. And like Mia mentioned earlier, healthcare is just one of the fields that could see big changes with this new tech. Take, for example, this Windows Insider who is developing a HoloLens app to help people who have severe brain injuries. Zach Clark is a veteran who sustained a brain injury while serving as a machine gunner in the Marine Corp. A machine gunner is a highly dangerous combat position, and Zach was wounded while serving in Iraq. Now he's working to help people with similar conditions through mixed reality. Zach, welcome to the podcast. Tell us about your background and how you got started on this project. ZACH CLARK: A little bit about myself, I've always tinkered with computers, even before the Marine Corp. I would always take stuff apart, and somehow we'd lose parts. And so I became pretty good with computers. My family wanted me to find something in the computer job, and I wanted to -- you know, I wanted to fight instead. And obviously that's where it got me to where I am today dealing with my injuries and my issues. JASON HOWARD: What was your experience in combat, and how did you get injured. ZACH CLARK: One of the big pinnacle moments there, being part of a regimental combat team, we encountered a boxed laser. And they would point the lasers at the gunners that they attempted to ambush. And this is kind of like one portion of the story, because this still affects me emotionally to this day. So they hit me in the eye with a high powered box laser on the back of a truck, less than a second, and it blinded me in my right eye. It melted the film around my Oakleys. And so it really kind of messed with the medical teams, and they didn't know how to treat laser injuries. I think I was one of the first to get hit on a truck. They medevac'd me out, put an eye patch on. They didn't realize that the optical nerve ripped. So sent back to the truck, and I started doing convoys again, looking like a pirate. And one day I was on top of a 7 ton, and loading up our machine gun, which was an M2 .50 cal, and I was trying to set it down, and something with the optical nerve shorted out my brain, and I ended up going head first, falling about eight to nine feet, and then having a .50 cal slam down on my neck as well. They dealt with that. They couldn't figure out why I fell. They said the impact just from the laser itself causing the tissue to retract caused portions of my lobes to contract so hard they scarred up. And so that was kind of a pinnacle point in my life, because that's when everything kind of went downhill. JASON HOWARD: So what has been the result of that accident for you ZACH CLARK: The memory, it's unstable. I'm on about 15 to 20 different meds a day. And so working with the Insider program and doing all that has kind of kept a consistent thing for me, and that's helped my memory. But some days I can't walk, some days I can't get out of bed, all the way down to where I would be puking every day, but, you know, pardon that detail. JASON HOWARD: You spend a lot of time trying to work with your community and give back. Part of what you're doing now is developing an app for HoloLens, right. ZACH CLARK: Yes. JASON HOWARD: Can you tell us about how that project came around and what you're doing. ZACH CLARK: So that project came around with my own issues actually. I would get lost. I would have an issue with remembering my medications, remembering which area of the hospital I needed to go to that day. And so I've been kind of messing with mapping tools, geolocation, and I'm trying to develop almost like signal indicators for the hospital so that someone with my issues can put the headset on if they're in a wheelchair or whatever, and it will help guide them through, it will help remind them that they need to do this or they need to do that. I'm doing that because I had a huge issue with it, but I also still have a pretty big issue with it. And I wanted to help people with eyesight issues to where there's somewhat of a proximity. I knocked down the Christmas tree a few years ago, the tallest Christmas tree at the Crown Center because I didn't see it. I mean, there's not a lot I could do back then, but now being able to have something to develop on and develop with, I can apply my own struggles to prevent others from having that issue. JASON HOWARD: So obviously you're taking your own experience and your own situation and trying to use technology in a way that will help make that experience easier for yourself, but it also sounds like the whole concept of mixed reality can support other people, either those who are elderly or other people who have some sort of disability. It seems like there's a natural pathway here. ZACH CLARK: Exactly. JASON HOWARD: So personally it sounds like you've had quite the life experience so far. What are some of your goals for the future. ZACH CLARK: Goals for the future is get the app up and going, at least help one person a week. And right now, I mean, I'm just helping people day-in and day-out. I want to feel better, both mentally and physically. But my main goals are going to continue helping, and I will do that. JASON HOWARD: Talking to Zach and Mia about the merging of digital and physical worlds got me thinking. How does one become a hologram? Turns out Microsoft has production studios devoted to doing just that. We asked Dona Sarkar, head of the Windows Insider program here at Microsoft, to investigate. Listen as she goes on location to Microsoft Capture Studios and walks us through the technical process for capturing mixed reality content. SPENCER REYNOLDS: I'm Spencer Reynolds. I'm the Stage Manager here at Microsoft Mixed Reality Capture Studios. We have a stage here in Redmond, and we have stages in San Francisco and also a partner stage in London that we just opened both of those latter two stages within the last month or so. DONA SARKAR: So Spencer, you and I know that mixed reality best reality, but do you want to describe what that is to other people. SPENCER REYNOLDS: So basically what we're capturing here is really just living things. We're creating human holograms and living things. And so knowing that mixed reality is an awesome platform, it's that much more familiar and exciting to be in when you're there with living things that you can recognize and they look living. So what we're really exciting about capturing and creating here is people, and making holograms out of them. So that way when you're in one of these experiences, it's not so much just an environment or an experience that's all CG, you can really be in that environment with a person that you recognize or an incredible performer or any other sort of living thing that makes it that much more tangible. DONA SARKAR: What kind of living thing. SPENCER REYNOLDS: Any kind of living things. We've had all kinds of stuff between dancers and educators and undead zombies and weight lifters and, you know, baby tigers and animals are always fun. People always - DONA SARKAR: Did you just say baby tiger. SPENCER REYNOLDS: I did say baby tigers. Baby lions, sloths, llamas, all kinds of stuff. Big and small, animals are fun. But they are animals, so sometimes they're - DONA SARKAR: So they're unruly. SPENCER REYNOLDS: They can be a little unruly. They don't take direction quite as well. But they are still quite fun. But also, yeah, I mean, in addition to animals and educators and all that good stuff, you know, we find that it's not just entertainment that we use this for, we're really trying to target this for anything that you use video for today in terms of entertainment but also education and commerce and even personal memories. It's one of the most innate things that people see when they come through the stage is they're like, I want to bring my kids through, I want to bring my grandparents through, and try to get sort of a memory of somebody that's in their life that they love. DONA SARKAR: That's amazing. Who's the most famous person that you've had in here. SPENCER REYNOLDS: It's a pretty good list at this point. I'm trying to think of some of the ones that are public at this point. We had Russell Wilson come through. We had George Takei come through, Billy Corgan, which was just recently announced. A few more coming down the pipe that are not quite out there yet. DONA SARKAR: Ooh, a secret. SPENCER REYNOLDS: Yeah, secret, secret. DONA SARKAR: That is so cool. So what is the weirdest thing you've recorded. SPENCER REYNOLDS: That's an even longer list, but yeah, all kinds of wacky stuff. Weird is one thing, but definitely just exciting or interesting. There's been lots of stuff where we've been recording, and I just can't help but shake my head while we're doing a capture, just like I can't believe we're here doing this. But I wouldn't say grumpy cat is weird, but definitely - DONA SARKAR: Definitely weird. SPENCER REYNOLDS: -- definitely an odd experience seeing grumpy cat out on the stage. But yeah, I mean, also just the wide variety of like, you know, people in cosplay costumes and people just kind of being themselves doing amazing things of performance, you know, Cirque du Soleil performers, just kinds of all wild, wacky stuff where every day it's just, wow, I can't believe we're actually here capturing this wide variety of stuff. DONA SARKAR: That's amazing. So why do they come to you? What are they trying to achieve by coming in here to the studio. SPENCER REYNOLDS: Well, I mean, really this is one of the few places in the entire world where you can capture holograms of humans. And so our goal with this project is really just to create more of this content, because mixed reality is great and mixed reality again is that much more palpable when you have content that makes sense that people can relate to. A lot of our projects are both Microsoft internal projects, but more so recently external projects where it's either an agency or a creative group that wants to come through and capture somebody that's recognizable, somebody that they're going to be using for their experience. And so part of that also is just getting more of these stages accessible and out there. We don't want to own and operate stages that only we're the gatekeepers for. It's really about getting more of these stages, and also having more partner stages so that around the world these stages just become more and more accessible to people that want to get this kind of content. DONA SARKAR: That is so cool. The Windows Insiders and the two of us are giant nerds. SPENCER REYNOLDS: Likewise. DONA SARKAR: Talk to us about how this works. How does it work? Can you describe the process for how you capture footage for mixed reality. SPENCER REYNOLDS: Yeah, certainly. We have a huge stage with 106 cameras. And half of them are color cameras and half of them are infrared. So we basically record performances of the people who are out onstage, and while we're recording that, it's about 10 gigabytes of data a second. And then we take all of that data, and we put it to a render farm. And then as we process it, we basically extract out a video file that's on the order of 10 megabits a second. DONA SARKAR: Wow. SPENCER REYNOLDS: So it's a pretty big compression, but what that allows us is basically to stream this content, and sort of deliver it to a wider variety of audiences, and also across a number of platforms. It's not necessarily just for Windows or HoloLens or anything like that. I mean, obviously it looks great on HoloLens and mixed reality devices, but we like to remind folks that it works out touch devices, it works on mobile, it works on desktop. Pretty much any platform where you can change the viewpoint, this content works just as well there. We look at this technology not as something that's going to replace motion capture or replace computer graphics or anything like that, it's just another tool, it's another way of creating the content. There are definitely like pros and cons that each one of these technologies has, and so it really is fun to sort of explore those as we make more of this type of content. DONA SARKAR: All right. Let's have a walkthrough. SPENCER REYNOLDS: Yeah, indeed. Come on up. I'll warn you there's a sticky floor. We've lost a couple kids there; they get stuck. DONA SARKAR: Wow, look at this. This is very green. Yeah, this is very, very green. So why is it green. SPENCER REYNOLDS: A couple reasons. The main reason that this stage is green is because green helps with determining what's in the stage and sort of what is the background. And that's really important for us as we do processing is knowing sort of what's in the foreground and what's in the background. The green isn't necessarily required, we sort of called this setup sort of the best case scenario, this is the perfect world in terms of it's very green, and you'll notice that the lights are all nice and bright and really evenly lit. As you look around, there aren't a lot of shadows on the floor, there aren't a lot of shadows on us. The reason that we tend to shoot with very even lights is because when we go into a HoloLens experience, we don't necessarily know what the lighting is in the world. DONA SARKAR: That's right. SPENCER REYNOLDS: You don't want shadows conflicting. So we often just kind of say, okay, you're evenly lit. But for other experiences where maybe we do know what the environment is, we can try to recreate that environment. And by doing that, it gives the capture a lot more detail in terms of shadows or color that maybe matches up with the world that you're going to put that character into. And it really does take it to a whole other level of sort of embedding that character into the world. DONA SARKAR: So I know you all can't see this but this is the most green room you have ever seen, like Kermit the Frog green everywhere. And the lights are amazing. They're just like the best studio lights you've ever seen in your entire life. And they're all over the room. How many lights are in here, 50. SPENCER REYNOLDS: I want to say there are 32. DONA SARKAR: Thirty-two. SPENCER REYNOLDS: Yeah. So basically, and that's split across the foreground and the background. And so the reason we have the background so far back is just because we want to make sure that the light bouncing off of that wall doesn't sort of come back in and make everyone here in the capture area more green. DONA SARKAR: That's right. There are so many cameras pointed right here at the center stage. How many cameras did you say again. SPENCER REYNOLDS: A hundred and six cameras. DONA SARKAR: Wow. SPENCER REYNOLDS: Yeah. DONA SARKAR: That's a lot of cameras SPENCER REYNOLDS: They're all over. I mean, they're 360 and they're even up top. DONA SARKAR: They are up top, yeah. SPENCER REYNOLDS: And so yeah, half of them are color, half of them are infrared. You'll see this little box right here. This is actually an infrared emitter out of the original Kinect. DONA SARKAR: Oh, that is interesting. Yeah, we've said that, HoloLens is Kinect shrunken down, on your head, advanced. SPENCER REYNOLDS: Exactly, yeah. DONA SARKAR: Yeah, and we're seeing it actually right now. SPENCER REYNOLDS: So what's fun about this is this puts out just a really nice infrared star field speckle pattern onto the performers, and that's what the infrared cameras are looking for. They look at that pattern of dots, and then they can use that to sort of reconstruct the 3D shape of the person or the object that's out here. DONA SARKAR: So when you had the zombie in here, what was that like? Ned. SPENCER REYNOLDS: Ned. DONA SARKAR: Ned. SPENCER REYNOLDS: Yeah, Ned's the best. We love Ned. Ned's pretty fun. DONA SARKAR: Everyone, that's a zombie on a treadmill. Is there anything you think our audience should know that I haven't prosecuted you about in this amazing green room. SPENCER REYNOLDS: I mean, really it's just we now have these stages, they're open. They're open to the public for projects. And if you're interested in learning more, like we do have a website that you can just search for Microsoft mixed reality capture studio, and there's a website that's now actually out there that people can find us. And we have several research papers that have sort of been announced over the years, and we've sort of released them and not really broadcast them. So you'll find lots of fun links and just examples of things we've captured and groups that we've worked with, and also we'll just have a lot more projects coming up in the future that we're announcing through that page. DONA SARKAR: So you actually have mixed reality capture as a service. SPENCER REYNOLDS: Mm-hmm. DONA SARKAR: That's kind of amazing. SPENCER REYNOLDS: Yeah. DONA SARKAR: That is fabulous. Thank you so much for letting us crash this space - SPENCER REYNOLDS: Thank you. DONA SARKAR: -- and showing us where all the zombie magic happens. SPENCER REYNOLDS: This is the spot. JASON HOWARD: There's no limit to the kinds of content we will see in mixed reality in the coming months and years. It's going to be exciting to see what developers and designers come up with for this new technology. Thanks for listening to part two of our series on mixed reality. If you liked this episode, subscribe on your favorite podcast app and share it with your friends. And be sure to join us next time on the Windows Insider Podcast. Thanks, Insiders. NARRATION: Our program today was produced by Microsoft Production Studios. The Insider team includes Tyler Ahn, Michelle Paison, and Amelia Greim. Our website is Insider.windows.com. Support for the Windows Insider podcast comes from Microsoft, empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Moral support and inspiration comes from Ninja Cat, reminding us to have fun and pursue our passions. Thanks, as always, to our programs cofounders, Dona Sarkar and Jeremiah Marble. Join us next month with more stories from Windows Insiders. END

  • Dec 13, 2017 · 38 min

    Mixed Reality Part 1: Microsoft

    Over the next two episodes, the Windows Insider podcast explores all things mixed reality. In part 1, we chat with the Hololens team about design elements in Windows Mixed Reality and how developers can get started creating immersive experiences. We also hear how virtual reality enhances social life and creates community with people from all over the world. Find out more about Windows Mixed Reality here: https://aka.ms/MoreInfo_WindowsMixedReality Episode transcript ALEX KIPMAN (from video): Now we're standing together at the threshold of the next revolution of computing. Now, the thing that excites me about this revolution is that computers will empower us to renegotiate our very contract with reality, giving us the capability to transcend time, space, and devices In this revolution we will immerse ourselves in virtual worlds of our choosing, and we'll be able to accomplish impossible things. And we'll be able to do all of this while creating lasting memories with the people that we love Our very sense of reality is set to be transformed as we enter this new era of computing, the era of mixed reality JASON HOWARD: That's Alex Kipman, Technical Fellow here at Microsoft, delivering the keynote at a recent event where he unveiled the company's vision for mixed reality And as you can tell from that clip, his vision is a bold one. Microsoft's plan for mixed reality is nothing short of transforming the way people interact with the physical and digital worlds But let's back up for a second. What is mixed reality, and what will it enable us to do? Welcome to the Windows Insider Podcast where we explore all things Windows, the Insider community, and beyond I'm your host, Jason Howard. You're listening to Episode 10, the first of a two-part series where we'll explore mixed reality Microsoft has been a pioneer in mixed reality, also known as MR, starting with the groundbreaking launch of HoloLens in 2015. The HoloLens is the world's first untethered holographic computer that enables people to have experiences that blend both the physical and digital worlds To learn about recent developments in MR I've invited a couple experts from the HoloLens team to the podcast today BECKY HARUYAMA: My name is Becky Haruyama, and I am a Principal Designer for the Windows Mixed Reality Engineering Team. And what I've been focusing on most recently is the customer experience in the physical Microsoft stores where people who are going out and looking at what is this Windows Mixed Reality, we have design and experience for them to kind of better understand why they should invest in this KATHERINE HARRIS: Yeah, and I'm Kat Harris. I am also on the Windows design team, but I am a developer and I work mainly with our open source toolkits that we provide to developers to help them really dive into working with our headsets, and making very high quality, cool, new experiences and new tools for their companies or bringing their ideas to life JASON HOWARD: So Becky, let me ask you, what is your definition of mixed reality? BECKY HARUYAMA: So we are familiar with the physical world. We live in it every day. It's made out of atoms. It's things that you can touch. And then there is this digital world that is made out of pixels. And mixed reality is the blending of those two realities together And so while that is still really abstract, if you start thinking about augmented reality and virtual reality, those are actually under the spectrum, the umbrella term of mixed reality So augmented reality is when you have digital artifacts in your physical world, so you can see your environment, you can move around inside of it, and there are digital artifacts that are around. And there's different kind of fidelities of that And then of course on the virtual reality side your environment is completely digital. And there's not really like a hard edge line, it's more of a blending of people, places, and things. And so you could have a fully digital person in a fully physical location or physical place. And so it's really like Alex Kipman talks about this dial, the mixer, that kind of mixes people, places, and things between augmented reality and virtual reality. So there is no boundary between the two, it's really a mixture of those three characteristics under the umbrella of mixed reality JASON HOWARD: So Kat, your work is focused on enabling developers to create mixed reality experiences. What are some inspiring things you've seen people do with this new technology KATHERINE HARRIS: A lot of different things. What's great about mixed reality is that it's kind of an open platform for a bunch of different industries to kind of jump into. You have the medical industry, you have education, you have training people. And it's this new exploratory like medium of giving content to people and kind of training their brains or delivering that content in a different way that they've never really experienced before And so we're enabling developers now to create new experiences that we would have never realized ourselves. Just being in the tech industry we're kind of in our own little bubble. But getting to share this technology with a bunch of different people allows them to create some really cool things I met a woman last week actually who was working in robotics, and she was using the HoloLens to control multiple robots and like control where it was going. And I was asking her, like, oh, that's so amazing. She's like, yeah, what would be really cool eventually is to be able to have a counterpart application in immersive reality, and have the headsets where people could experience like what the robot was experiencing perhaps. And that way you have one person controlling it with the HoloLens, and another person experiencing what the robot is experiencing JASON HOWARD: Wow KATHERINE HARRIS: Yeah, exactly. I was like, oh my gosh, that's so cool, I want -- I want that application now BECKY HARUYAMA: Tell him about what that event was KATHERINE HARRIS: Oh yeah. So last week, we had an event with women in VR. We invited a bunch of women creators who had HoloLens out in the field in LA, New York, Paris, and had them all come in for a two-day workshop to kind of introduce them to the new headsets, as well as showcase their awesome HoloLens applications So there was about nine or ten different applications that people were showing off. One of them was a museum application called HoloStoria where museums could use it, and you can have 3D assets, place them around your museum, scale them up, add 2D information to also display to the user. And you didn't need to know anything about programming to use it. So you could give it to curators and stuff, and they could just easily go around and create their museum add-ons or extensions to their physical locations And a couple other fun ones, there was one where you defend kittens from aliens attacking. So that's more on the gaming side One person was using AI to train a dragon. Think of a Tamagotchi, but with a dragon that could interact with your physical world. So it knew where walls were, it knew where the ground was, it could fly and burrow and avoid stuff, and you could interact with it, give it commands We also had like art installations where you could see a stage and interact with your friends and see this art installation come to life Muralize is a very popular application where you take your Instagram feed or any Instagram photo and put it on a wall, pin it there, and then you can actually have paints and stuff and paint the wall with the headset on, so you can see your art. So it's helping artists create in a new way that I would have never been able to come up with BECKY HARUYAMA: And this whole thing was kind of identifying people out in the wild who are creating amazing things on HoloLens, and then the effort was helping them kind of port these experiences over to Windows Mixed Reality immersive headsets, just to kind of enable them to have broader reach JASON HOWARD: So it sounds like developers obviously they have their hands on this, they are doing great things already. What are some of the key things that, Kat, you and your team are doing to enable developers to have a good experience in this space KATHERINE HARRIS: Yeah, there's a bunch of things that we're trying to do to meet developers where they are So we have a repository on GitHub called the Holo Toolkit. And it's a toolkit of assets and scripts that developers can use with the engine Unity. It's a game engine to use simulations or create 3D environments. And using those scripts and the toolkit they can easily get started with the basic foundations of how do you do spatial mapping, how would one do like hand gesture for tapping or gaze. And so the scripts are already given to them JASON HOWARD: Let's talk about some of the design elements in Windows Mixed Reality. Becky, can you tell us about the considerations you and your team had during development BECKY HARUYAMA: We really wanted to make sure that we had content that would be interesting to people who are gamers, people who are not gamers, men and women, different ages. And so we had that as a goal And then we were also looking at the Cliff House, which is our kind of, quote/unquote, "home" in mixed reality. It's the environment that you cruise around when you're inside the headset. And we looked at the design of the quote/unquote "architecture," and there are different spaces in the Cliff House And so we looked at what we call these different psychological fields or what are the things that you do in these different types of rooms or these different kind of locations. So we have a back patio. It's really beautiful. It's very relaxing. You're looking out over Mt. Rainier. You can go outside and there's birds chirping. So the psychological field for that is relax and dream And then we have a studio which is more your typical kind of office studio space. And that's more for creativity and productivity And then we have the deck which overlooks the water. There are these floating islands. We like to have a little bit of fantasy in with our reality. And that one's more aspirational. It's more like what's next for me. I'm about to decide what I'm going to do with my life. And so that room is learn and discover And then we have the theatre, which is this really amazing, huge space that is where you have your games and your movies and it's more about like escaping and playing So we kind of had that as our organizing principles for the way we wanted the demo to unfold. We looked at what content we needed in each of those locations to kind of ensure that we would have an experience that would really resonate with a wide group of people JASON HOWARD: Can you tell us a little bit about the history of the Cliff House and why is that the first place you land in the Windows Mixed Reality world? BECKY HARUYAMA: So one of the things that I think is really interesting when we talk about mixed reality is realizing that on our desktop our 2D screen when you go to the Start Menu, like that's kind of your center of gravity, like that's how you go back to it, it's how you move around, and that is kind of kind of the paradigm that we use So when you think about transitioning into a spatial analogy, and it's actually the thing that we're most familiar with in the world. Like we were born and we move around in the world, and it is a spatial interface, it is a spatial environment So when you think about what is a home, it's something that everyone can relate to, hopefully, that it is this place that is kind of central to who you are and to what you do. And architects and space planners really leverage these constructs that we're familiar with around what situation am I going to do in this room and in this room and in this room, and then you design kind of a place around it So having it be a home really seemed to make the most sense, because we wanted it to be familiar, and we infused some like fantasy into it, like I mentioned before with the floating islands. So it really is like this aspirational, amazing place that we wanted people to instantly understand how to move around within it But it's not your normal home. Like there are no doors, there are no windows. You can hop up onto the roof, which is my favorite place to go KATHERINE HARRIS: Same BECKY HARUYAMA: Yeah, it's so fun. It's got the best view And so it just seemed to make the most sense We weren't going to do like a forest. Ah, I'm lost in the forest, you know, or like you're on a beach. Well, okay, that's fine, but we wanted it to have a certain level of utility. We wanted it to be a place that was comfortable, and we wanted it to be neutral enough in the sense so that you could personalize it in the way which you organize all the things that matter the most to you, the apps that you like the most And it was actually inspired by a really beautiful modern house that was built in the 1950s, I believe, it was the Farnsworth House. If you look it up online, it's this really beautiful, kind of super simple, streamlined house, had a lot of glass, really simple lines. And the architect built it for his client to kind of support her hobbies, which were playing violin, reading poetry, and looking at nature. And so it was this really amazing kind of inside-out space that when everyone looks at this picture, it's like, oh, I really want to live there, that's like the most amazing house. And so that was a lot of the inspiration for the Cliff House And we picked the external environment to be inspired by our beautiful Northwest, and that's why we have Mt. Rainer there also JASON HOWARD: Nice. I actually didn't know that about the history. That's kind of cool that it's based off of an actual house that exists BECKY HARUYAMA: Yeah, well, a lot of architecture is this really interesting -- you know, you look for inspiration, and then you kind of apply it to the goals that you're trying to facilitate I mean, I think the most important thing is we wanted people to be able to identify with it, and to then make it their own. And so that was one of our main goals JASON HOWARD: So to the point of personalization and making Cliff House your own, right, do either of you have your own Cliff House that you've designed and customized and - KATHERINE HARRIS: Oh yeah, yeah. Becky, you go first BECKY HARUYAMA: Yeah, okay. So I have spent a ton of time in the headset kind of creating my own environment. And my favorite thing was when I put up the photos app, and put my own personal photos in, so it turned into like a slideshow. And so I'm hanging out in there, and I'm doing my self-hosting and kind of figuring out how we were going to create the demo for the retail stores. But then there's my family right there with me. And then we had kind of an internal contest of who could like make the craziest Cliff House. And some of the other designers made these amazing -- like they take the holograms and they would like make -- I don't know, there was like a hundred flamingos or monkeys, I don't remember what it was, or they'd like take the shopping bag and make it huge, or, you know, it's really fun, because there's a lot of scalability. You can play with the scale of things in a way that you can't do in the quote/unquote "real world." And so like playing with the holograms, and then putting your apps in the way that you want to, and like what's on the roof and -- okay, Kat, you go KATHERINE HARRIS: My favorite thing is to make the Netflix app as big as possible, so I have like an 80-foot screen BECKY HARUYAMA: Is that on the roof KATHERINE HARRIS: No. So there's like the media room, right? Well, there's a button on the side of the media room where it's just like a wooden room, but then when you hit that button, it turns into outer space. Or like not outer space, like the stars JASON HOWARD: Okay KATHERINE HARRIS: And it's beautiful. And I just like watching my new Netflix shows, and then seeing this beautiful skyline. And then it's like Netflix but then it's all my other media as well. I have a bunch of 360 video apps on the side, and then I have a bunch of games on the roof of the house, so I'll just pop up to the roof, and it's like 360, just all my favorite games. And then, of course, I use my holograms to like make it my own. So I have like a little dog hologram, a little cat hologram, just lots of pets and animals. Since I don't own any, I can have hologram ones JASON HOWARD: And no mess to clean up KATHERINE HARRIS: And no mess to clean up. I don't have to like feed them and stuff or forget to feed them, because that's why I don't have a pet, because I would -- they would die. I've killed a cactus. Never mind. That's another story JASON HOWARD: If you're ready to see the Cliff House for yourself, just go to a Microsoft Store for a free demo. You'll also be able to check out the different immersive headsets that are available now. I've tried it, and it's a ton of fun. Not to mention the fact that I scored Spartan the first time I played the new Halo mixed reality edition. Another exciting development in MR is the opportunity for socializing. This immersive technology can give you the chance to meet people from all over the world, attend live events in far off lands, and play interactive games Here to tell us more about the social side of MR is Katie Kelly from AltSpaceVR, one of the leading social platforms for virtual reality So AltSpaceVR provides an environment for people to meet up in virtual reality. Why is it important to have social spaces in VR KATIE KELLY: I think the better question is, why is it important to have social spaces in general. And I think in virtual reality having a place where you can hang out with other people is just a natural evolution of where we are with communication technology So you have Skype and you have videoconferencing and you have a phone, and we've gotten really tethered to these devices where you are only communicating through speech or looking directly at somebody on a Skype call. But you miss out on those things that we do when we're watching TV together, those natural interactions that you have when you're doing something together So what we think is that VR is the natural evolution of communication, is that you are going to have shared experiences with each other instead of being tethered by just your voice or through eye contact on a videoconference JASON HOWARD: So can you describe a little more what it's like being there in virtual reality just hanging out KATIE KELLY: Sure. When you go into AltSpaceVR, you don't know what you're exactly going to get, but our biggest goal is to get you to laugh, hopefully in the first five minutes So you can come into AltSpaceVR and you will first probably pop into our campfire. It's our communal space where there are people hanging out, and we have marshmallows and we have a forest landscape and a roaring fire, and that's where people go to hang out And so when you go in and there's going to be somebody there, they'll probably say hi, and you'll say hi back, and then you'll realize that you are talking from inside your headset, probably in your living room, hopefully with clothes on, to a random person that might be in Norway or might be in Sweden or might be in California or somewhere in the states, and then you just start talking And if you don't just start that conversation, we have lots of things for you to do to start to encourage those interactions. Our main goal is to get you to meet somebody new, and to have a good time, and hopefully make a friend And so we have games that you can play, we have dungeons and dragons, and we have chess, and we have Cards Against Humanity is our most popular, of course JASON HOWARD: That's a fun game KATIE KELLY: It's called Holograms Against Humanity in AltSpaceVR And you can go explore different environments. We have a full Mayan maze that will take you 20 minutes to get through, and you'll make some interesting friends along the way We have a disc golf course, and mostly we have events. We're really known for our events. You can come in at any point and see a community calendar of all the events that will be happening throughout the day or the week. And it spans the gamut from meetups to comedy shows to news broadcasts to live streams, our rocket launches. We do a live stream of SpaceX rocket launches. Those are some of our most popular live streams Because we've found that people want to experience these pulse moments together with other people. So what's a better way of doing that than putting on your headset, you're alone in your room in maybe rural Nebraska, and all of a sudden you're in a room watching something really cool with a bunch of people that could potentially be new friends JASON HOWARD: So as an individual, the experience, I put on my headset, and, you know, I get logged in, so to speak, right? What do I see of other people? Am I seeing actual images of them? Can they upload photos of themselves? Is it just like a representation, is it some sort of avatar KATIE KELLY: So right now you're an avatar. And we have a range of different avatars that you can customize, mostly with different colors for different robot avatars, and then we have a male and a female avatar with a couple different clothing styles, different races, different hair colors. And so that's where we are right now with our avatar system. And so when you go into a room, you see a bunch of other avatars But what's interesting, if you haven't tried VR, is it's really hard to explain how present you actually feel with other people. My father has a Gear VR that I got him years ago when I first started at AltSpace so that we could experience what it was like hanging out with somebody you knew in VR. And he's always a white avatar with red stripes, with his hands behind his back. But after probably, I don't know, 15 minutes, I completely just associated that avatar as my father. At one point, he switched avatars, and I was like, no, dad, you've got to back, now you're just in a different body. You were you when you were that avatar And we found that across the board that people really start to identify with the avatar that they are, and when I got into AltSpace and I see my friends there now, now that I have friends in VR, which is really strange to say, I recognize people based on their avatar. I'm like, Lea, hey, how's it going, and Peroxide, how's it going, so nice to see you in your red avatar JASON HOWARD: So it sounds like people from around the world are participating and joining in and getting together. Can you tell us a little bit about the people that are participating? Do you have any information about like the diversity of users kind of around the world KATIE KELLY: So our events are a testing ground for us to try a lot of things to see what people are going to like in VR. So we do a lot of things. I have done the first yoga class in virtual reality. I have held the first meditation meetup with our amazing previous community manager, Lisa Kotecki. And we've just tried to supply a lot of different things to see what people like to do And so one idea was to do meetups, and they've become really successful. So I did an LGBT meetup, and we had a good couple hundred people show up, and we talked about what it was like being gay around the world One guy was from South Africa talking about being gay down there. A couple in Australia was talking about fighting for gay rights. A man in Turkey was talking about having to prove that he was gay, because he couldn't join the military because he was gay, but they didn't believe him And then you had a girl in rural Nebraska that was 16, and she couldn't actually say the word gay because her family could hear her, because she was still in her family's house. So she messaged, she wrote a little text message to one of my coworkers that was in the space I was in. You have to use your imagination a little bit, but you feel like you're in an actual space with other people And he messaged me and said, "Hey, there's this girl here that wants to talk and tell us her experience, but she can't say the word gay. What do we do? And so I asked her, I said, what's something you just love to talk about? And she said chocolate. I said, okay, every time you want to say the word gay, say the word chocolate She told us about the first time she ever ate chocolate, who she liked to share her chocolate with, all the different kinds of chocolate that she liked. And then three weeks later, she came out to her family, because she felt like she had her community in VR that she saw once a week, and she didn't feel as different as she had felt before And those stories are happening over and over again, but those kind of moments where you wouldn't be able to find your community out in your neighborhood, you can now put on a headset and potentially find it from anybody around the world JASON HOWARD: That seems like it takes away some of that isolation, and so that you can connect with other people that are going through whatever particular experience they may be seeing or feeling or thoughts or topics or anything really KATIE KELLY: Exactly. Another example, we partnered with NBC last year to do a virtual democracy plaza. So we did a recreation of Rockefeller Plaza in VR that you could wander around, go to the ice rink. And then they brought in some of their amazing talent, Al Roker, Chuck Todd, Steve Kornacki, to do live newscasts in VR But what they also did was they brought in live streams the presidential debates into VR. So we did all four of them. And this sounds like it could go wrong in so many ways, right? Like you're inviting a very polarized nation and world to come hang out in virtual reality and watch this live together. But what we found was that people in general when they felt like they were really there with other people, they talked, they communicated. They weren't leaving mean messages on YouTube, they were actually having a conversation with somebody. So even while they disagreed, they were talking The first day after the elections, results came in, I held a casual gathering in VR asking people to talk about their thoughts. And we had Republicans, we had Democrats, we had people from outside the U.S. talking. And after about an hour, my heart felt so much better, because the main thing that people kept saying is, hey, we're in this together And I took off my headset after that moment and felt like I had gotten out of my echo chamber that I see on so many other social media accounts, and felt like, okay, I had connected with the people that I didn't necessarily know or have a face to, and I felt like we got each other. And that's what I've found in AltSpaceVR all the time JASON HOWARD: So that's interesting that you put it that way, because when you don't have some of that personal connection, you end up with a lot of what you see in social media, be it Twitter or Facebook or wherever, where when you don't know the person and it's just a flat 2D image and it's a wall of text that you're scrolling through, it's easy to sit behind your keyboard and type something that you may not necessarily say or not say it the same way if you were face-to-face with somebody or if you were in a group of people And it sounds like having this extra layer of feeling like you're there, even though you may not physically be there, it kind of takes that down and kind of resets people back to a moment of, hey, I'm actually talking to other people instead of just adding to a wall of text KATIE KELLY: Definitely. And I think what's important, too, is to acknowledge the work that the AltSpaceVR community has also done to make it a really welcoming place. I don't think it's just you're in VR now, you feel like a better person. I think we've worked, one, really hard to make sure that we are really welcoming to a diverse group of people. So we have live in VR customer support all the time. We have our community support representatives that are always there in the campfire, a living, breathing person in VR. I can't say that enough, because we're probably the first people to have that always there. And they are our first person that you talk to, first person to kind of intro you to the product if you have any questions going on. But also if you have any troubles, if any problems are arising, you can go and talk to a real person and say, hey, I'm having this issue And then on top of that we've put in some really amazing tools so that you feel like you have control over your environment. So if I am talking to you and your mic is really loud or maybe you're saying something I don't want to hear, I can mute you. And then that mutes you for the rest of the experience until I unmute you. I can also block you if I don't want to see you anymore. That will remove you from my experience, and will remove me from your experience. And then also when you block somebody, too, you can report like why did I block this person. And then you have the live 24-hour support. But then you also have a space bubble. And this one's really important I think just in VR because it's really easy for an avatar to get so close to you that you feel they're actually invading your personal space. It feels really uncomfortable. And so automatically when you come into AltSpaceVR, you have a space bubble around you that if somebody gets too close they disappear and their handle disappears. And then if you want to get closer, like if you have a couple friends, people love like cheek kisses in AltSpaceVR and fist bumps and hugs. There's this one woman, Clair, that lives in London. She's in AltSpaceVR a lot. And every time I see her like she wants to give me a hug. And I get so excited, I'm like, Clair, and we hug, and it feels like I'm getting a real hug by this woman from around the world So you should have that control, too, to be able to have those more intimate moments when you want, but if you don't, you have some tools at your disposal so you can take care of yourself JASON HOWARD: So earlier, you mentioned the concept of an echo chamber. And a lot of times that gets associated with like political thoughts and things like that. But if you expand upon it a little bit, you get to the whole like your social bubble of like the things you surround yourself with, right, the spaces you choose to participate in So how are you like creating inclusive experiences for all kinds of people? It sounds like you're already taking steps down that path KATIE KELLY: I think our events is where we start. So you can think of an event almost as the easiest way to create VR content, especially if you're not a developer. And also we should talk later, too, about all the developer tools we have. But specifically with events if you are just a random person, again maybe living in rural Nebraska, not to pick on rural Nebraska, but you can go into VR, set up an event, and you automatically have a way to talk to a lot of different people. And our community has been creating most of the events that we've had, especially the last couple months. And those have included things like book clubs and poetry meetups and writing workshops for NaNoWriMo last month. And we've had yoga classes and meditation and talent shows, talk shows. Talk shows have become really popular where you kind of have the original feeling of YouTube. You have these people that recognize the power of the platform, and they were basically unknown before, but now they're creating a presence in VR This amazing woman, Vivian, if you ever come into VR, you'll see her show. And she comes on, and she just puts together this amazing show where she'll have games and trivia and invite people from the audience to come and participate But we're creating a new medium, and it's really fascinating. And what that goes back to when it comes to diversity is that our events aren't games, they aren't attracting just a gamer audience that usually skews male. We're attracting a wide range of people because we aren't a game, we're an experience So if you come into AltSpaceVR and you want to go to an event, you might go to a meditation event or there's actually a slumber party I think on Monday night. And women and men are welcome, but it's run by a bunch of women that wanted to have an event where they could connect with other women and watch movies and TV and just hang out So that's what makes me really excited about the diversity possibility of VR is that AltSpaceVR is showing that there's a lot of people out there that want to experience VR. They just don't necessarily know where to go, and AltSpaceVR seems to be a great place for them to start JASON HOWARD: Yeah. So having this type of space, and I know we touched on a moment about ago about muting and blocking people, things like that, right? And as we mentioned before, on traditional social platforms there's the whole concept of trolling and annoying people and people that are out to in essence create an unwelcoming environment or they try to take over conversations, things like that, right? Have you seen this as a problem in AltSpaceVR as of now? Do you expect it to be a problem into the future KATIE KELLY: It's a problem in VR in general. It's a problem in real life in general So one thing that my team spends a lot of time thinking about is how do we try to address those problems as soon as possible, and give users the chance to address it themselves, which is why our mute and our block and our bubble are so important, and why are in-VR 24/7 support is really important So what we found, one, when you come into social VR I do think you're more likely to feel like you are around real people. So I think it makes it a little bit harder to cause as much grief as maybe some other social platforms, because you want to fit in. You feel like there's a little bit of a culture that you're joining, and you want to be a part of it But if you don't and you want to cause havoc, you'll figure out ways to. So we want to make sure that when that happens, we can remove that person as soon as possible or at least have the users have the tools they need to remove them from their own experience JASON HOWARD: So there's obviously some guidelines in place as for if there's a person who's continually disruptive or creating an unwelcoming environment, things of that nature, that there are consequences to those actions KATIE KELLY: Yeah, we have a list of community standards that are very important to us that include everything from respecting other people and being inclusive, but also being mindful that we are inviting people from around the world to be in this space together, so we need to work together to make sure that everybody feels welcome and kind of know the rules JASON HOWARD: So in the opening, right, you mentioned that AltSpaceVR had been acquired by Microsoft. What was that like? Like how did that happen KATIE KELLY: It has been a roller coaster I think for our team the last couple of months, but it's also been really exciting, especially where we ended up. We thought we were closing down in June, and we closed up shop and left AltSpaceVR running. We're able to keep everything there. We actually had a goodbye party planned that our users - JASON HOWARD: Wait, wait, wait, wait, like closing as in closing the doors, ending the service potentially? Like, ow, okay KATIE KELLY: Yeah, we got to a point where that was unfortunately the reality kind of where we were at. And we had a goodbye party planned, and a bunch of our users showed up. And it was really heart-wrenching. But people on my team just kept fighting for the service, and telling people like why this mattered. And then we connected with the Microsoft team, and they saw why it mattered, and they really grew passionate about what we created, and lo and behold, we were acquired by Microsoft JASON HOWARD: Wow. That's a good thing, right? I mean, with the good work that you're doing, and obviously the plans that you have for the future, it's nice that the doors didn't get closed. But anytime there's an acquisition, things seem to change a bit. How do you see this particular acquisition changing the direction of the company KATIE KELLY: The thing that I've loved the most that I've heard from the team that we now work with at Microsoft over and over again is that they want AltSpaceVR to stay AltSpaceVR, and that they in a lot of ways are coming to us and our team to kind of find out about like what we did right, and what we've learned for now So in a lot of ways we feel really respected as a team, and really excited about the potential to use the resources, the massive amount of resources that Microsoft has to improve the experience in AltSpaceVR, grow our community, make more exciting events and experiences, and yeah, just grow this thing that we like passionately spent like the last couple years working on JASON HOWARD: So you mentioned earlier developer tools as part of this platform. Do you want to highlight on that a little bit KATIE KELLY: AltSpaceVR's SDK community is a bunch of really creative, really scrappy people that with three.js and A-frame can build their own experiences and environments in AltSpaceVR You can go to AltVR.com and check out our developer community and join our Slack, and you'll basically be introduced to a lot of people that are just doing some of the coolest stuff in VR that I've ever seen So in AltSpaceVR now you can go and you can check out a desert environment that somebody made with a tiki bar. This amazing woman Faye made a karaoke room with posters that she designed all over the walls, and rainbow wallpaper and rainbow floors So basically, you can kind of let your creativity go wild, and using our SDK make your own VR experiences JASON HOWARD: So are there any community imposed limitations on what they can create? Like is there any content that's, for lack of a better word, almost forbidden or not welcome KATIE KELLY: We think about ourselves really similar to I think how we think about the Internet. So a space in AltSpaceVR is really similar to a web page. And we think that people should be able to make whatever web content they want and bring it into AltSpaceVR That doesn't mean we're going to allow our general community to go and see it. So you always have to go through at least one step to have your content on our listed events page. But you will have a URL that you can share with your friends. So if you make a room that you're really excited about, and just want to share it with your community, by all means. And you also have the chance to have private events and private spaces, and you can make it friends only So there's a lot of different ways that you can kind of customize like who you want to share your content with, but we are going to be following our community standards and our guidelines for anything that the general community is going to see JASON HOWARD: So as part of those standards are there age limitations, anything that need to be thought of before somebody potentially tries to join the community KATIE KELLY: AltSpaceVR is 13 and over. And then we have content that we will put warnings on the banner of the tile image on the event page that will tell you whether it's appropriate for 17-plus or more for adults We are a community for adults, and we have some amazing like 13 to 17 year olds in general, but in general when you come to AltSpaceVR you're going to feel like you're around other adults, and it's something that we tried to make the community really awesome for that JASON HOWARD: So we've talked a lot about the social aspect and people interacting, but more to the broad picture like what do you think the future of social VR experience is? KATIE KELLY: The future of social VR I think is really up to the imagination of what people can make there. I do think that VR in general is going to be social, no matter what, in some capacity. And so I think that the future is just becoming a place where anybody can go meet, interact, share content, do cool events, go do other VR experiences, but eventually you're going to want to do it with your friends and the people that you know. So we think that the future of VR is social, to say it so bluntly JASON HOWARD: Well, I've got my mom on Facebook, so maybe I can send her a headset and get her to come join one of these types of spaces at some point KATIE KELLY: You should. It's really fun JASON HOWARD: So just as a quick reminder, how can the listeners join the AltSpaceVR community KATIE KELLY: You can join AltSpaceVR by going to AltVR.com or go to any store on your Oculus headset, on your Samsung Gear, on your Daydream, or through Google Play, and you can look up AltSpaceVR and download us for whatever platform you have. And if you have a mixed reality headset, you can go to the Steam VR Bridge and find AltSpaceVR and download that. And we really hope to see you in VR sometime JASON HOWARD: The acquisition of AltSpaceVR is just one of the ways Microsoft is working on a catalog of immersive experiences. From games to travel to videos, there are so many ways MR can enhance our work and social lives We're going to continue exploring the subject of mixed reality in January's episode. Join us next month to find out how the traditional media industry is incorporating virtual reality, and we'll find out more about the technical process for turning people and animals into holograms. You won't want to miss it Make sure you never miss an episode of the Windows Insider podcast by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts. And if you liked this episode, be sure to review and rate the podcast so others can discover it as well Thanks, Insiders. Join us next time on the Windows Insider Podcast NARRATOR: Our program today was produced by Microsoft Production Studios. The Insider team includes Tyler An (ph), Michelle Paisan (ph), and Amelia Grime (ph) Our website is Insider.Windows.com Support for the Windows Insider Podcast comes from Microsoft, empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more Moral support and inspiration comes from Ninja Cat, reminding us to have fun and pursue our passions Thanks, as always, to our programs cofounders, Donna Sarkar (ph), and Jeremiah Marble (ph) Join us next month with more stories from Windows Insiders END

  • Nov 30, 2017 · 32 min

    Making Technology Accessible

    In honor of International Day of Persons with Disabilities on December 3rd, the Windows Insider Podcast team explores advancements in inclusive technology. For decades, Microsoft has been creating products and services to serve people of all abilities, and in recent years the company has made a stronger commitment to this goal with the appointment of Chief Accessibility Officer, Jenny Lay-Flurrie. In this episode, we chat with Jenny about the future of inclusive tech, and we learn how feedback from users (and Windows Insiders!) is shaping Microsoft's efforts. To find out more about Microsoft's commitment to accessibility and inclusion, visit Microsoft.com/Accessibility. Episode transcript: NARRATOR: Welcome to the Windows Insider where we explore all things Windows, the Insider community and beyond I'm your host, Jason Howard (ph). You are listening to Episode 9, and this month's theme is accessibility JASON HOWARD: Wait a minute, that's not me. That was the Windows 10 Narrator. And it's more than just a podcast gimmick, the Narrator feature helps people who are blind or have low vision navigate their computers by reading what's on screen When you think about how much of what we do in the world relies on what can be read, you really start to understand how this technology could impact the lives of millions of people More and more accessibility features are built into the DNA of Microsoft services and products. These features deliver on Microsoft's mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. That includes ensuring people of all abilities can participate in life, work, and society Today, we're going to talk to someone who's taking the ideals of accessibility and inclusion and putting them into action. Please meet Microsoft's Chief Accessibility Officer, Jenny Lay-Flurrie So here you are the Chief Accessibility Officer. JENNY LAY-FLURRIE: I am JASON HOWARD: What does that mean JENNY LAY-FLURRIE: Basically, it means that my job is to drive for a great experience for customers with disabilities and employees with disabilities, and also really pursue the concept of inclusive design. So it just means I'm really thinking about a section of our customer base that's pretty big, and how we can ensure that we're delivering great products, great services, great hiring process, to ensure that we're really inclusive JASON HOWARD: A few years ago, accessibility could have been considered a side project at many companies, but things have changed, at least at Microsoft. Now it's becoming an integral part of our company culture and product development. Can you tell us how that happened JENNY LAY-FLURRIE: Yeah, it's kind of cool what's going on, and I'm loving being part of it. But actually accessibility has been part of Microsoft's strategy for well over actually 20 years. But we've definitely in the last couple of years decided to really kick it up a notch And by kicking it up a notch, it's just really leaning into the opportunity that we have. You know, there's a billion people in the world with disabilities, a billion plus. These are our customers, our friends, our peers, our everything. And there's a whole suite of innovation that can come from really designing products and building products that include disability So we invested in some resources across the company, across our product divisions, including my lovely team, and really decided to go after that opportunity to build better products, and to really think about how we were hiring talent across the spectrum of disability as well JASON HOWARD: So Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella has a son who's in a wheelchair because of cerebral palsy, and is paralyzed. Satya has said in his new book Hit Refresh that having a son with disabilities has made him more empathetic, and that's one of the reasons he's committed to driving accessibility and inclusion at Microsoft. That explains why the company is working towards some of these accessibility initiatives On a personal level what experience has led you to working in accessibility JENNY LAY-FLURRIE: It's a great question, and Satya, the book is just it's incredible. And if you haven't read it, please do. I mean, Satya is sharing his own personal experiences there. It's just incredibly powerful I think we've all had a personal journey. My personal journey, let's just say I would never have predicted that I would be doing this job today. I mean, I come from a small town on the outskirts of Birmingham in the UK. I went through mainstream education. I went to a music college. I got a classical music degree. And I thought I was going to be a really cool classical rock star or a music therapist or something in that vein And then I started working in IT, actually in a newspaper in London on the IT help desk, and realized that I dig, I just love problem-solving. And I thought that was going to be my career was, you know, solving problems with IT and doing a bit of music on the side But all the way through the one stream that I've had all the way through this is that I'm deaf, I'm profoundly deaf. And my deafness has decreased since I was a child So I went to music college with moderate deafness. It's slid since then. And I never, ever -- I mean, I hid my deafness for many years, wasn't really open about it. But I think maybe people way wiser and smarter than me could have predicted the path is me realizing that I could really use these skills, and use them to make a difference, not just for me and my friends, but to make a difference seriously in a company like Microsoft So I came to Microsoft 13 years ago. I came to run technical support, still solving problems, and then about five, six years ago took a risk and changed career, and went to be an individual contributor to change the world for customers with disabilities, and I've never looked back JASON HOWARD: Wow. So how does working in this field change the way you see the world JENNY LAY-FLURRIE: I've worked in different jobs over the years, you know, whether it was support or online advertising for a while. I've worked in different things. And I firmly believe that technology has the power to empower. And I've seen that in different spheres, but I think never more in the work that I do today, which is every day working with peers and friends, seeing how they're leveraging technology and just realizing and appreciating what we can do to make that experience better, whether it's somebody using a wheelchair with limited dexterity manipulating some part of Office, or it's somebody who's blind working through a web page, whether that's our own or someone else's, or me with captioning and how that changes my life and others, and how we can get that more integrated into the fabric of our company So you know, I really do think that it's a really empowering field to work in. I walk out every day with the same frustrations and same joys as everyone else, but I do have a deep-seated sense that we are making a difference. And that's the opportunity we have JASON HOWARD: Well, as you just mentioned Office, Microsoft has developed a wide variety of accessibility features such as Windows 10 Narrator, Office 365's built-in tools for authoring accessible content, things of that nature. There's even eye tracking technology that enables people who have limited mobility to navigate their PCs using only their eyes Can you tell us about the development of those features? Did anything come up unnecessary during the R&D research and development cycle JENNY LAY-FLURRIE: I don't know what you mean. I don't think anything ever comes up that surprises during an R&D cycle. (Laughter.) I can't ever imagine that scenario playing out Always. And I think at the core if we follow those principles of inclusive design, inclusive design is all about making sure that you design a product that is embedding the feedback of people and experts. And in our area that's people with disabilities So whenever we're looking, and Office has done incredible job across every single component of Office 365, across every platform, of putting a brand new bar of accessibility out there, and that's anything from PowerPoint to Excel to Sway, right? If you don't Sway, you should Sway. And every single componentry has been designed in collaboration with people So that means you do some prototypes, you get them out there, you get a bunch of people in a room, and you say, hey, but have a play, and scenario-led and all that good stuff But yet it's very hard to replicate the experience of someone who's blind or someone with a visual impairment. The speed at which they are reading the screen, as somebody who's deaf it's very hard for me to comprehend, and it's way faster than we can sign You have to lean into the experiences that you get from people, and you learn the hints and tricks and the keyboard shortcuts are very important. And if you have tried to go off the standardized path, you need to pull it back in a little bit And just the extra words that we tend to put in, or if we put in alt-text, you know, the words that describe images, and we don't put those in accurately, just how destructive that can be to the overall usability of the experience So I think we've learned a lot along the way, and we've definitely learned a lot with eye control, the new feature in Windows, because that came from a hack actually three years ago, the first hack that I ever got involved in, and it was a guy called Steve Gleason from Louisiana who came to us with a list of beautiful ideas that basically were, hey, Microsoft, can you make my experience better? He's an NFL player, a Spokane native, Washington State native, but living in Louisiana with his wife and beautiful kid Rivers. And he was the genesis of a three-year journey through our research division, through Windows division, and many, many more, and many people with ALS here in Seattle that helped us to get eye control into Windows And we're still learning. It's a beater feature, and we're still learning. You can't replicate ALS. It's about hours and hours and hours of sitting with people and understanding how to make sure it's the best experience But yeah, you can now control your mouse with your eyes. You can type with your eyes using a Windows device with a full Creator's Update. So it's pretty kickass JASON HOWARD: That's quite a journey, it seems JENNY LAY-FLURRIE: Yeah, I do think it's a journey, and I think we'll continue to reiterate. And that's also why Insiders are so important, right? We need -- we need people to give us that feedback, what is working, what is not, what can we tweak, what can we improve, what's driving you nuts. We're only as good as the feedback that we get JASON HOWARD: I wanted to ask you about how you include people with disabilities in the product development process, but it seems like the Insider programs are a great way to start with that JENNY LAY-FLURRIE: You know, there's multiple, multiple also ways to give feedback. There always are in a company this size with as many products as we have The Insiders I cannot promote enough. I mean, I think it's just a brilliant way to get involved in early stage technology that may be buggy, that may have some funkiness to it, but you have the opportunity to give us feedback knowing that we're listening, and know we're really listening for our customers with disabilities who are using accessible technology. We want that feedback. It's gold dust. And you have the chance to shape the next rev, right, of Windows. There's nothing more powerful than that The same with Office. You know, there's an Office Insiders program. But there's also other ways. If you're not too game to install a potential version of Windows that may disrupt the flow a little bit, then there's User Voice. We have forums there where we're always listening for features. We're voting them up, voting them down And also you can give feedback within Narrator built-in screen reader So there's plenty, plenty ways to make sure your voice is heard JASON HOWARD: And now just kind of as a personal note, being on the Windows Insider team, one of the things that when we originally got started, accessibility wasn't necessarily a blocking gate as part of promoting builds from our internal canary and self-host rings into the fast and slow rings. And part of the feedback that we got was we were making it entirely too difficult to get some of the feedback that was extremely important to get during that development cycle. So especially for the slow ring and more so now into the fast ring accessibility is becoming a blocking gate to help ensure that we don't break that experience for the users who are giving us that type of feedback JENNY LAY-FLURRIE: I love that. I'm so excited that the priority of accessibility within Insiders and within our products broadly generally is at that level where, yeah, if we're not cutting it, we're going to stop ship, right? I mean, it's that important to us. So yeah, I mean, the advice I get, know your power. You have huge power to influence the flow of our product set JASON HOWARD: So along the way obviously there have been many changes of course. Was there anything that you thought would be an easier problem to solve but proved to be a bit more complex than expected originally JENNY LAY-FLURRIE: Harder to solve. You know, I think when you're looking at accessibility across as many products as we have, and we have really five product divisions, and each of our product sets is launching multiple, you know, literally hundreds of products every year and every month and every week, you know, my biggest challenge today is just really making sure that we keep the consistency, we keep prioritizing at this level, and we keep innovating Yeah, there are some brilliant features that have come out of now our emphasis on AI in one of our five divisions that's making an impact in Windows. In fact, if you're blind and using a screen reader or Narrator, and it comes up in images, it's leveraging AI describing that image and embedding alt-text in and speaking that as part of your experience So no longer are we reliant on everyone to be able to write really good alt-text, right, the descriptions behind these pictures. We can leverage some of our AI infrastructure. And I'm looking forward to doing that a lot more, that kind of collaboration across the groups, bringing different parts of joy and wisdom from one into the other. And both Office and Windows are doing amazing work there But yes, it's a broad gig, and the bar is very high, because we do believe that this isn't just about meeting a conformance or compliance, this is about leveraging the power of what is possible with the lens of disability JASON HOWARD: So the Windows 10 Fall Creator's Update was available through the Insider program months ago. And the public beta has already launched. The actual retail release is occurring right now. And obviously Insiders were able to preview this. Were there any specific features that showed up in this past development cycle that you've seen in action with real users out in the world? JENNY LAY-FLURRIE: Eye control we've already mentioned. That's built into Fall Creator's Update. It's an early feature. We're already getting some feedback. We really want more. And, you know, that's one that's just going to grow. You do need a 4C Tobii device in order to leverage the feature. So yeah, there are a couple of things to think through with eye control if you're looking at that I think the other thing with Fall Creators that I really love are the color filters. This is a brand new feature set. But if you think about it, color blindness is huge. Color blindness affects -- it's around 1 in 9 individuals, and mostly men. And there's lots of different types of color blindness. Well, now you can go into your ease of use settings within Windows and you can select one of those filters, and hopefully see Windows in a different way as a result So that's just brilliant innovation, and I've seen some of that out in the wild, and got some really good feedback from folks who are loving it. But I also think that's a brand new one that I want to make sure people know about and are leveraging. I was showing a bunch of people yesterday. And it's amazing how many people, you'll be sitting in a meeting and mention this feature, and I dare you, right, I bet you at least one hand goes up, because it is that prevalent So I really do love the color filters. I think those are really cool The other one just within Windows I have to mention just Narrator. The Windows team has been really incrementally every release tweaking and performance improvements on Narrator. They're also now making sure that magnifier speaks with Narrator as well. And if you are using screen readers, just please go and try it out. I mean, we've really worked on the languages, we've worked on the speed, we've worked on the accuracy and the usability of it. And so it's been incremental. You know, if you're tracking where we're going, this is probably about third or fourth release with improvements to Narrator. But I urge you to give it a go. It's kind of fun JASON HOWARD: So we mentioned eye tracking technology a couple times, and how it enables people who can't type to both communicate and interact with their PCs. But at some point, it could be something that we all use. So how do you see the field of inclusion driving innovation into the future JENNY LAY-FLURRIE: I look at that journey that we started with eye control, you know, going back to Steve and an e-mail, right? It just came from an e-mail, right? That was the genesis of all of our efforts here And then you meet Steve and you fall in love, and you're totally lost, right? You'll do anything for team Gleason But I think where it's at now is tip of the iceberg as to where it could go. I've spent some time really looking into eye control, using your eyes to control a device, and there really is limitless potential there for that And then you look at other areas, right, what we can do and what we are doing with captioning. One of my favorite products is Microsoft Translator. And we've actually now got an add-in in PowerPoint And what it means is that I can be standing on stage or I can be watching somebody else using PowerPoint, and as long as they're mic'd up pretty well, the words of what they're saying will appear on the screen, automatically captioned onto the screen Now, it in no way replaces the need that I had for my beautiful interpreter sitting to your right or for actual captioning which comes from people using stenographers, using those devices you see in court. But it's automatic captions that instantly is available, giving me independence, giving me the ability to make a phone call, right, if you think about it, as we start to weave that technology in So what it means is we have the chance not just to level the playing field, we have the chance to advance the playing field. People with disabilities in the U.S. but also more broadly, the unemployment rate is double that of people without disabilities. And a lot of the reason is this empowerment. We have this opportunity to empower in the workplace, empower at home. We can change an unemployment rate So I get very excited about it, because I look at how technology is impacting my life, and I know there's a long, long way to go. I look at how eye control has the power to impact communication for Steve going down the road again, and how things like Narrator can impact someone who's blind. And we're on a journey, but I do believe that over time technology can make that difference JASON HOWARD: It sounds like you have quite an impressive vision for the future of technology. It's going to be fun to join along that ride and see where we go from here JENNY LAY-FLURRIE: Game on, right JASON HOWARD: Absolutely JENNY LAY-FLURRIE: Okay JASON HOWARD: So before we break, if you let your imagination run wild, what do you see as the future of technology JENNY LAY-FLURRIE: Oh, this is a fun one. So I'm a big Trekkie fan. I mean, I am a big Trekkie. I mean, it's not something I talk a lot about, but my father educated me really well And, I mean, you think about some of the technologies that were there, I mean, they had people with disabilities empowered through tech, right? Geordi La Forge and his visor, I mean, how wicked is that I also think about Xbox and the power of holograms, and while I love my interpreter with every part of my soul before she throws things at me across the room, I mean, wouldn't it be wicked on-demand whenever I needed it to be able to just have a hologram appear and be able to understand a room with my interpreter just sitting right there? And sometimes invisible. Again I love you, but a little bit invisible. I mean, that would be just wicked. No scheduling, no logistics, just poof, up it comes, complete independence and freedom And I would love to see wheelchairs seamlessly going down stairs. There's been a lot of different crazy stuff around that. My goodness, I could keep going. I mean, it's world is our oyster I think with this space JASON HOWARD: So it seems you have quite the vision for the future of technology. Before we wrap up, is there anything specific you'd like to share with the users JENNY LAY-FLURRIE: Yeah. Get involved, get going. Please do check out the website. That's really the single spot where everything is linked. So it's Microsoft.com/accessibility. That's got details on our products, it's got details on conformance. I mean, it's got details on feedback channels. It's really a one-stop shop. It's got our hiring programs on there as well And the one I'd call out really is our support team. We actually have a dedicated support environment for our customers with disabilities. It's called DAD, Disability Answer Desk. I have no MOM, but I do have a DAD on my team. And basically they are experts in accessibility, they're experts in accessible technologies. And so give them a call. You can use chat, you can use phone. And for our deaf customers -- and we'll transcribe this podcast, so I know they'll be looking at it, too -- we also have direct videos so you can contact us in American Sign Language, ASL. And so they can help you with the latest rev of product But I know for our Insiders they're on it, and I just encourage the feedback, and let us know what else you want to see, because this is a journey and we'll only be as good as the feedback we get JASON HOWARD: Absolutely For you non-Trekkies out there, the visor Jenny mentioned earlier is a device worn by the character Geordi La Forge from the series Star Trek the Next Generation. If you're not familiar with this, you can check it out on Bing. Whatever changes may come in tech, it's exciting to know that these efforts will allow more people to participate in school, work, and their personal lives My conversation with Jenny got me wondering, what kind of impact do innovations in Windows 10 have for real people. So I sat down with a Windows Insider who is blind and uses accessibility technologies every day JOSEPH LEE: I'm Joseph Lee, currently a student at Cal State Los Angeles, studying communication studies, formerly studying computer science at UC Riverside, and currently a Windows Insider. And I joined the Windows Insider program. I was one of the first ones to get in on the first day when the very first build came out in October, 2014. And right now as part of my Insider program work I also am a developer of a screen reader, a third party screen reader named NVDA, Nonvisual Desktop Access So my work currently focuses on making sure that Redstone 4 builds are usable by people with visual impairments, specifically with Narrator and NVDA and other screen readers JASON HOWARD: So obviously you're a Windows Insider, and you said you've been participating in the program since the beginning JOSEPH LEE: Yes, since the beginning JASON HOWARD: So just kind of overall how has the experience been of being a Windows Insider? JOSEPH LEE: I'm impressed with progress I've seen, especially with accessibility features and other Windows features that does have accessibility potential such as most recently eye gaze or eye control, and Cortana obviously, progress with Microsoft Edge and seeing how people can how use consoles with Narrator and many other interesting developments in the accessibility space JASON HOWARD: That's awesome So I do want to ask you about some of your personal experiences, if that's okay JOSEPH LEE: Sure JASON HOWARD: You know, you mentioned earlier of studying engineering. I'm assuming that was at UC Riverside, as you had mentioned. What was that experience like? If I understand correctly, you were one of the first blind students to actually be in the engineering program at that college JOSEPH LEE: I was one of the first blind students to take on engineering. And for me it was a challenge, at first, because professors didn't know how to describe calculus graphs to me. I knew the formulas for what the theorems were, but then in terms of graphing and whatnot it was a challenge. For me it was quite an interesting experience going through computer science as a blind student. Initially means communication but then in the end through some negotiations and communication it worked out JASON HOWARD: So it sounds like you made some progress after a little bit of talking here, you know, some -- getting on the same page, it sounds like, to make some accommodations given the change in the environment, at least for that professor, right JOSEPH LEE: Perfectly right. In the early on, right JASON HOWARD: So kind of on a broader scale like just in life as a whole can you describe the experience of having a visual impairment for our listeners JOSEPH LEE: I was initially able to see, because I was low vision early on, because I was able to use magnifying glasses to see and walk around, or even take transportation around. But the overall experience of visual impairment is adjustment and negotiation, adjustment because as often said in many research papers that if you lose one sense, it enhances the others. For many people for visual impairment it's either touch or hearing. In my case I'm blessed with both senses. And the other one is negotiation, trying to live life with something at a loss, but then it opens up a lot of opportunities such as being able to become more sensitive to hearing things such as hearing conversations much better, and being able to use alternative forms of communication, for example, as we'll get into, the screen readers, assistive tools, or sometimes even reading braille So for those who never experienced visual impairment, it's like stepping into another culture. There's always going to be initial shock or loss, but then what makes a huge difference in the lives of people with visual impairment is seeing the potential despite loss of something, through adjustment in whatever they do, and negotiating the path forward JASON HOWARD: You've had plenty of experience using technology. Can you tell me about some of the early experiences previously? Because obviously you said there's been a lot of progress and a lot of change. So some of that older, early experience, can you tell me about using technology previously? JOSEPH LEE: For me the very first taste of technology was when one of my elementary school teachers brought in a printed circuit board, a PCB. And then a few months later, I got introduced to computers through DOS and screen reader. Back then the screen readers would just take whatever is on the console and just print it out. And then this around the time is when I moved to U.S. And then a few years later, I was introduced to what we now call a primitive note-taker device, a video cassette sized hardware with seven keys, six keys for braille dots and a spacebar. And the alternative, because the market for assistive technology is small, back then it retailed for more than a thousand dollars JASON HOWARD: Wow JOSEPH LEE: About 1,500, to be exact JASON HOWARD: Oh my goodness JOSEPH LEE: Being able to use more advanced tools in Microsoft Office or being able to use more complicated websites was just a dream for us. It was just static pages, static web pages, just using the basic features of Office, basic features of Word, and using Outlook as an e-mail client and whatnot That was early days, and that is very, very different world today when we have touchscreens, we have Surface Book 2, we have mixed reality, we have potentials for Cortana collections and whatnot JASON HOWARD: So let me touch back on the Windows Insider program for a moment. So obviously you having been in the program from the beginning, you've seen the change of accessibility features and the focus in Windows on accessibility along the progress as Windows 10 has jumped from build to build and release to release along the way. And being an Insider obviously you have a chance to help influence the design of Windows and the progress of accessibility along the way. Can you tell us about some of the experience you've had in helping guide the future of accessibility within Windows JOSEPH LEE: I joined the Insider program mostly to see how accessibility is going, as mentioned, as well as to see, making sure that people with disabilities will not be left out in making sure that Windows 10 ecosystems are working for them and whatnot For me I think the biggest influence that I had on the program, and the most fruitful experience is dialogue and collaboration. Back then in the early days of Windows Insider program I wrote an open letter to Microsoft addressed to Terry Myerson and other top executives, asking them to invest in accessibility, asking third party universal app developers to invest in listening to feedback on accessibility needs, because they will be potentially speaking and interacting with at least 400 million customers worldwide, and this is just visual impairment. But there are billions of people who have visible and invisible disabilities around the world So that was my first initial focus of the Windows Insider program back then, and I think that has been the most fruitful thing I've seen Obviously appointment of Jenny Lay-Flurrie, on Twitter Jenny Lay-Fluffy, as Chief Accessibility Officer has been a greatest, one of the most significant achievements in terms of disability advocacy at Microsoft And the other thing that I helped influence is making sure that people think about accessibility in giving feedback JASON HOWARD: We've talked a lot about Windows, we've talked about accessibility, we talked about some of your background, but let me ask you an important question about yourself. Like what are some of your goals in life JOSEPH LEE: Since I was a kid, I want to get into teaching. My other life goal has been to serve, not just teach, because I feel that it is much better for people to show that they are willing to serve others than to be served. Because for me serving others meant trying to find out what's going on so they can have a better experience in life or providing technical support. And that's one of the reasons why I joined Insider program was to serve So those are my life goals, to one day stand on a podium and give lectures about computer science, communication studies, and whatever I learn, and serve JASON HOWARD: Are you looking to teach others who have the same sight impairment as you or just broadly in general you want to reach out to anybody that you can have an effect on? JOSEPH LEE: Ah, so mostly general public, because to me it doesn't matter who the audiences are, as long as they get the message. It doesn't have to be people who use screen readers, it doesn't have to be all the blind people alone, all blind people in a group sitting together and using various phones and laptops. It could be people, general public who are really interested in the back behind the scenes story of disability, accessibility work, or anything, that I need to tell the public about what I'm passionate about JASON HOWARD: Well, Joseph, I have to say it's been fantastic chatting with you today. Thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule. I know being a student is chaotic and crazy. There's a lot going on. Your time is a bit limited. But it means a lot to us for you to have taken the time to come and speak with us today. So thank you so very much for that JOSEPH LEE: You're welcome JASON HOWARD: It's been a pleasure As we innovate for accessibility and inclusion, it can lead to benefits for people of all abilities. Take this scenario: sidewalks have a ramp to enable people in wheelchairs to use them, but that ramp is also helpful for people on bikes or with rolling luggage. It's a great example of inclusive design benefitting everyone In addition to changes in the physical world like sidewalk ramps, accessibility features and inclusive design are already changing the way people of all abilities interact with technology. Who knows what the future will bring? It's possible that eye tracking and Narrator will have a broader influence on how we all use Windows If you have questions or feedback about Microsoft's accessibility efforts, I'll include some information to learn more in this episode's description. And if you want to try out the features we mentioned for yourself, all you need to do is download the Windows 10 Fall Creator's Update. And of course keep flighting for the chance to get the first look at the newest features in Microsoft releases Thanks for listening to this month's episode of the Windows Insider podcast. If you like this episode, be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast. We'll be tackling some great topics in the coming months like mixed reality. You won't want to miss them Thanks, Insiders. Catch you next time on the Windows Insider podcast NARRATOR: Our program today was produced by Microsoft Production Studios. The Insider team includes Tyler Ahn, Michelle Paison, and Amelia Greim Our website is insider.windows.com. Support for the Windows Insider podcast comes from Microsoft, empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more Moral support and inspiration comes from Ninja Cat, reminding us to have fun and pursue our passions Thanks as always to our program's cofounders, Donna Sarkar and Jeremiah Marble. Make sure you never miss an episode of the Windows Insider podcast by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like this episode, be sure to review and rate the podcast so others can discover it Join us next month for more stories with Windows InsidersEND

  • Oct 25, 2017 · 46 min

    The Future of Women in Tech

    According to a 2016 study, only 26% of the tech industry's workforce is women. This month on the Windows Insider Podcast, we explore the impact of having so few women in software development and other tech careers, and what we can do to empower women in the field. Featuring guest hosts Colleen O'Brien and Sonia Dara from the podcast "Women in Business & Technology". To learn more about the "Women in Business & Technology" podcast, visit: https://aka.ms/Womenbizandtech

  • Sep 27, 2017 · 20 min

    Be a Hero in your Org with Windows Insider for Business

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  • Aug 10, 2017 · 23 min

    Spotlight on Microsoft Internships

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  • Jul 25, 2017 · 36 min

    Insiders Take the Wheel

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  • Jun 28, 2017 · 38 min

    The Importance of Play

    This month on the Windows Insider Podcast, hear Kiki Wolfkill, the Studio Head for Transmedia at 343 Industries, and Dona Sarkar dissect how experiential gaming builds empathy, and learn life lessons from a third grader about how gamifying coding builds not only robots but friendships and newfound skills within immigrant communities.

  • May 26, 2017 · 30 min

    Microsoft in Education

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  • Apr 24, 2017 · 23 min

    The Down Under Episode

    In this Down Under episode of the Windows Insider podcast, listen in as Chief Ninja Cat, Dona Sarkar, and the Godfather of Windows Insider Program, Bill Karagounis, discuss updates coming out of Ignite Australia and ways our Insiders can become heroes of the digital transformation. Our next Aussie guest shares the origin story of Girl-germs, the name of her blog, and the value she finds as a member of the Insider community.

  • Mar 28, 2017 · 16 min

    Insiders For Good

    On this inaugural episode, host Thomas "Tomcat" Trombley explores how Insiders for Good helps people transform their passion for tech into their superpower. Dona Sarkar, Head of the Windows Insider Program and overall Renaissance woman, teaches us how to use technology for the betterment of humanity. Then hear from one of the 25 winners of the first Insiders for Good Fellowship about how he puts power into the hands of the people of Nigeria (solar power, that is).