Sharon writes:
While it was disappointing not to see Professor Stephen Hawking, there were some interesting speakers there, and the Cambridge theme was unmissable. Even the Chancellor made significant reference to the contribution of Cambridge based teams to technology both in the past and the future.
Chris Bishop, Scientist and Lab Director at Microsoft Cambridge offered by far the most interesting speech, with updates and insights into the progressive applications of AI. These ranged from being able to accurately identify and define the boundaries of cancerous tumours non-invasively and in mere minutes, to the ability to accurately live translate a conversation in 3 languages simultaneously.
One of the technical highlights for me was the demo of the Surface hub. As a collaboration tool its brilliant, with multiple touch points and the ability to use touch and a stylus simultaneously, it’s the ideal tool for team brainstorming and discussion. As a company we are very big on sparking ideas off each other using whiteboard brainstorming, doodling and diagram-drawing, so I was immediately impressed by its smart whiteboard capabilities.
Also, as a consultant and SharePoint architect, I am forever drawing diagrams during phone or Skype conversations with our clients, and so the fact that Skype and screen sharing were built in makes it massively appealing as a digital productivity tool.
The 84″ is the only model I would consider as worthwhile, in terms of visibility and the practicality of multiple users using it at once, and Microsoft’s demo team did a great job of demonstrating the full range of the Surface Hub’s capabilities. Overall, there’s a lot to love about this product, and it really does itself, but with a price tag of £19k it’s not for every business, which is a shame.
Read the technical specs for the Surface Hub here:
It’s always great to hear the keynote announcements in person, and Dr Ian Levy in particular stood out among the speeches. As the Technical Director for the UK Government’s newly launched National Cyber Security Centre, he delivered a compelling message for putting an end to unhelpful scaremongering, and instead focusing on how we can implement changes so that mistakes aren’t made again.
Announcing yesterday’s release of the National Cyber Security Strategy for 2016 – 2021, he stressed the importance of combining systemic root cause analysis and management with public transparency and education in order to deliver a strong cyber security strategy. You can read more here:
Toni Townes-Whitney, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Worldwide Public Sector, gave an awesome keynote speech stressing “New Microsoft”‘s vision for preserving society, with a focus on values rather than value add technology. Microsoft’s aim is “to empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more”, and her impassioned speech, accompanied by a heart-warming video, certainly made a powerful impression. Definitely worth a watch if you missed it – hopefully the video will be made available soon.
Overall the core messaging of the day made me feel proud to be a cloud provider in Cambridge, and part of a movement that is looking to leverage far more from technology than just profit.
Business Cloud Integration Ltd offers Cloud, SharePoint and Office 365 consultancy in Cambridge, delivering solutions that increase company productivity, streamline and automate business processes, and simplify and enhance collaborative working.
Visit our website to find out more.
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