In the first and second parts of this diatribe against the idiocy that is Microsoft’s vision of the future, I highlighted a bunch of depicted technologies that are a) extremely likely to be impossible in 2021, b) completely at odds with how we use Internet technologies today, c) an affront to the intelligence of any human watching the video, or d) all of the above.

But the worst thing about this video is that it is so damned pedestrian. There is just so, so, so little here than shows me that Microsoft has any vision for the future, let alone how they intend to be a part of it. Fuck impossible holograms. Here’s the world I want to live in in 2021, and here’s how Microsoft fails to indicate that they have any interest in building it.

This is literally the opening second of the video, and what are we watching? An executive rolling her carry-on bag to the magical pickup that’s been arranged with Microsoft technologies. We know two things about this carry-on: it weighs 44 fricking pounds, and she’s schlepped it for the last 24 hours from Sydney to Johannesburg with at least one layover.

How’s this for a better idea? In the grand data-integrated future, my hotel and air carrier can actually talk to each other, and my luggage can show up in my damned hotel room without my having to touch it.

Here we see that in 2021, airport tarmac, which is driven upon by actual cars, is a Microsoft display surface. This is called out because it is So. Fucking. Stupid. I would have given this some credence if it were shown to be a projection from the ceiling, but no: it doesn’t appear projected on the limo when it arrives.

But even worse is the display behind Ayla. It’s a standard airport sign, and it’s needlessly animated. A printed sign works just fine for me when I’ve been in a dozen countries where I don’t speak the language; why in God’s name would you put a display surface here? Put up a goddamn sign that’s useful for anyone even if they don’t have thousands of dollars worth of portable technology. This is an airport in Africa. It’s ten years in the future. Get real.

A second example of So. Fucking. Stupid. 1) You just put a display surface where it’s invisible to the user and useless to anyone else. 2) You want us to believe that a pair of eyeglasses is both translating a spoken announcement and blocking out the ambient sound of the original announcement. Hey, Einsteins at Microsoft: eyeglasses cover your eyes. Your ears are what you hear with, while your ass is what you find with both hands on a good day. You couldn’t show us a rendition of the Bluetooth headset of 2021? Because that would actually make sense.

PS: eyeglasses = display surface, if you can stick one on a business card. That’s a hell of a lot simpler than the hoops you jump through for the rest of the video.

I have to bring back this picture because it’s just so many different kinds of stupid, as well as a missed Microsoft opportunity.

First: counting down the seconds is useful for any timer where precision to the second is actually feasible. I.e., a cab ride is not a useful place to display “15:24 remaining”. It’s useless and inaccurate information, and shows a sensibility that’s designed by engineers, not humans. Hint: the Apple display would say “about 15 minutes”.

Second: yes, I get it. You’ve got the Kinect, and that’s actually the only technology you do have that might give you a leg up on this future. I’d love to see your ideas on how you intend to Kinectify our future devices, because this is where you could really grab our mindsets by their collective balls and make us think you’ve got something important coming up.

Pointing in midair and drawing a heart ain’t it. In fact, it’s just the first of many depictions of a technology that’s more suited for 2221 than 2021, because it posits the existence of a Strong AI operating system that can anticipate the desires of the user and perform them instantaneously.

In this picture, is Ayla drawing a heart in midair? Or is she attempting to tap on her touchpad? Maybe she’s about to point for the driver? Scratch her knee? The magical device in her hand Just Knows and Responds Accordingly.

Bullshit. It tells me, instead, that no one at Microsoft is being serious about this video.

Note that the countdown timer is faintly visible in the window.

Note that my taxi just told anyone who’s watching where my meeting is tomorrow. As well as any other information that Microsoft decides to display on my car window.

Eyeglasses. Just. Use. The. Eyeglasses.

Could you possibly demonstrate any more thoroughly how completely you are missing the point?

It’s 2021. Why in the name of all that’s holy am I checking into my hotel manually from the taxicab? That is something that should be done for me when my GPS signal is detected at the airport gate before takeoff, and confirmed for me when it takes off on time. If vehicles are sending maintenance messages, then my airplane should damn well be calling my hotel to tell it when I’ve got a weather delay. And if there’s some problem and my hotel gets overbooked, find me another goddamned room.

If that happens, send me an alert and give me an interface. Otherwise, all you’ve done with the future is put a very pretty rotary dial on your iPhone.

This is where I start to question your marketing message. Our friend Ayla has the kind of job where she flies from Sydney to Johannesburg for a meeting, sure, but it’s not really clear how important she is until she gets here. After all, it’s 2021. Don’t you want to present a future where everyone has the dynamic kind of job where she’s constantly talking to colleagues on three continents?

So why does Ayla have an executive suite? I mean, never mind that the cheapest flight from Sydney to Jo’burg is $8,000. That hotel room is probably going to match that bill in three days. So your message is: if you’re as rich as Croesus, hoo boy, do we have the future for you!

That’s funny. I thought you were the guys with a motto of “a computer on every desk,” and that you made most of your money by sticking your OS on every piece of crappy commodity hardware you could find. Ayla is apparently the kind of person whose Microsoft Bing Navigator with Holographic Maps has a standing preference to avoid the “We Are the 99%” Protest Hooverville that should be visible from just about any fucking view of Johannesburg.

Which kind of brings me to this:

Really? Really? You set your future in Johannesburg, and your prominent black person is a Bellhop Assistant? Does this mean something different in 2021 than it does today? Are you aware that you could have put any number of white collar titles on this man’s display and avoided all of this?

I mean, shit, just make Anya’s surname “de Klerk” and be done with it.

Don’t think I didn’t notice that the time on Qin’s phone is the same as the time on Ayla’s phone. This is what I completely fail to understand about this video. You put so much effort into production values for everything but the products. It’s just goddamn sloppy. And that’s before I noticed that the mockup was apparently intended for an American audience before you stuck the actor in Hong Kong.

Now that I’m getting to see what your UI is actually like: Christ almighty, no thanks. That’s the most cluttered combination of totally extraneous elements I’ve ever seen, and you seem to be user-hostile about letting us focus on anything. That’s the device of the guy who wants to spend his entire day on Twitter and Facebook. Your vision of the future is awful. This is truly the best you can do?

Hint: the Apple video would show a clock and subway timetable on the home screen. If a new email arrived, it sure as hell wouldn’t pop up fullscreen without being asked.

(Which reminds me: in your future, Australian cell phones get holograms in Johannesburg, people have broadband in subway tunnels, but you can’t get online in a plane. Have you visited Earth recently? It’s kind of the opposite where we live.)

This single image says, “We have 1,000 marketers for every software engineer, and no one competent about computers or UI design was consulted in the making of this video.” It’s just that bad. This tells me that the future of Microsoft is being charted by the people who came up with the brown Zune.

I wrote software to determine exactly how long this image appears on screen, and it’s 0.7 seconds. Wendy is 32. Qin spoke to her 15 days ago. The software suggests he send her a gift. The very next scene: Qin puts down his phone and looks up and away with body language that pretty clearly says, “yeah, fuck that.”

What exactly are you trying to convey here? Because it’s not attractive.

This is bugfuck nuts. Seriously. The benefit concert is presumably playing in many stations, but the musician depicted immediately responds to the user’s action? You think that people will be more charitable when the musician is not physically standing on the platform performing? Has it ever occurred to you why a musician needs to put out a guitar case and throw in his own five bucks to start the day?

Then you show us that the musician is trying to raise US$6,600. Most street musicians consider $50 to be a damn good day. Again, this shows that not only are you ignorant about the technology you’re selling, you’re ignorant about the people you’re selling to.

Okay, just so we’re clear.

You’re demoing hardware—presumably not manufactured by Microsoft—that is capable of 3D input and holographic displays.

Microsoft Office 2021, in your vision, still works with 2D slides and documents.

Ayla works for a goddamn architectural firm. And her technology does not use the sort of 3D modeling and display work that is currently available in Google SketchUp.

You know, the idea that Microsoft will be this moribund in 10 years isn’t surprising at all. What is surprising is that you seem to agree.

Of course you had some Microsoft executive insist on including a QWERTY keyboard, because obviously you don’t want to scare away all of the gray-haired people who might watch this video. I even like the suggestion that Excel is still going to be vaguely useful in your future.

But what blows it is how you’ve lined up the keyboard perfectly with the hardware monitor. This isn’t a work desk, it’s a place where you’ve bolted down a keyboard and monitor for a demo. Make the keyboard askew. Show how all of the tabletop UI aligns itself with the keyboard to make it actually useful for a human user.

And for God’s sake, get rid of the drafting light. There’s not a single thing in this office that requires something this archaic. You might as well replace the keyboard with an Underwood typewriter.

We’ve just seen Ayla’s hotel workspace. Would you mind explaining the UI and/or AI that perfectly frames her upper torso for this video call, and then knows exactly which of several dozen interface elements spread out over three continents that this Kinect gesture applies to? You’re not demoing technology here. You’re demoing telepathy.

Two questions:

1) why is Qin arriving at 2 PM for his 11 AM meeting?

2) what exactly does he need to carry in that knapsack? All of the documents that were printed out on paper by Microsoft Office 2021?

In this segment Qin drags a graph off of his tablet and it “drops” along his line of sight to the display surface behind it. But everything is a display surface. What happens if it accidentally appears on the far wall? Can it fall out the window? And why did you neglect to include a bullshit holographic midair image with this motion, where the animation would actually be useful?

Also, why is there a hole in his tablet? Is that a cheeseboard?

If I’m reading the implication correctly, Microsoft Office 2021 will comprehend the actual language and mathematics used in documents, and will make suggestions as to how designs can be improved.

“It looks like you’re trying to create a design that requires a master’s degree in architecture, a Ph.D. in environmental engineering, and sentience. Would you like help with that?”

Again, this is appropriate for a video set in 2221, not ten years from now. Get serious. I could easily write another 1,000 words on all of the impossible things requiring Strong AI in the next 15 seconds of video.

I’m impressed how Sydney/Shannon has a completely clean physical workspace, and the most cluttered invisible spatial interface known to mankind in her tablet. Just one question: is her Ritalin dosage measured in milligrams or actual grams?

“It’s lo-og, it’s lo-og, it’s big, it’s heavy, it’s wood! It’s lo-og, it’s lo-og, it’s better than bad, it’s good!” I’m especially impressed that Shannon/Sydney has both a diary and a log. Because that’s not using geek language that an 11-year-old would never use at all.

Another question: just what the hell is that “Ideas for bake sale” window doing there before Sydney/Shannon asks it to find 1,296 recipes? Did she get that far in setting up this project, then get distracted? Does she need a bigger dose of Ritalin?

Nothing says, “Mom, I love you,” like a handwritten note that gets immediately converted into a handwritten font. Or like a note that says, “Drop everything and pay attention to me immediately, goddammit.”

By the way, Shannon/Sydney? It’s 4 PM Monday. Your fucking bake sale is tomorrow. Could you possibly have found any better time to pick out a goddamn pie? Ask your Dad, he’s home and presumably unemployed. Hell, he even chips in to make dinner one goddamn night a week, while your Mom takes care of all that woman stuff with her fabulous Microsoft technology the rest of the week, no matter what continent she’s on.

In 2021, Microsoft will have the foresight to use a graphic design popularized by South Park in the 1990s for children being born today.

Nothing says “technology of the future” like woodgrain finish.

Nothing says “technology of the future” like transparent aluminum. Seriously, Microsoft, what the fuck?

Question: how is a chocolate tart “more like” an apple pie, and less like a chocolate brownie? What if I wanted more desserts with fucking apples? And how exactly does an Australian family with a Czech surname arrive at the idea of a South African melktert on the next page just because Mom happens to be there at the moment? I mean, that’s one hell of a coincidence. Or is Ayla really Afrikaner? (In which case, please cf. “only black guy in Microsoft’s South Africa is a bellhop.”)

Mom has just started a 70 minute recipe with her daughter. Meanwhile, her company has flown her 6,867 miles and put her in an executive suite for three days in order to attend a meeting in a strange town in a black building on the horizon that starts in 24 goddamn minutes.

I’m amazed that the magic transparent fridge can’t just make a melktert from scratch on its own.

Again, no way is that dude any less than 12 years older than his wife. Although considering how clean the kitchen is, I’m pretty sure he’s gay.