Word: microsoft
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...Microsoft people may or may not be geniuses, but they're definitely geniuses at figuring out who the geniuses in the room are and then doing what they're doing. Today at E3, Microsoft announced a new technology that, like the Wii, uses motion-sensing to control video games. But it may just be better than the Wii. In fact it may just kill the Wii. (See the top 10 video games...
...Nintendo folks have sold about as many Wiis as Microsoft and Sony have sold Xbox 360s and PlayStation 3s put together. They are geniuses...
...really tried to, Microsoft probably could have come up with a decent knockoff of the Wii controller. But instead they - meaning Don Mattrick, the head of Microsoft's interactive-entertainment division and the former head of Electronic Arts - decided that instead of imitating Nintendo, Microsoft would try to leapfrog past Nintendo. "We did explore whether we thought a motion-based controller was a true next step or a transition step," Mattrick says. "And for us, we decided it was a transition step." So about 18 months ago he started up Project Natal...
...Microsoft tends to name its internal projects after cities. Natal is a city in Brazil, which is where Alex Kipman, one of the key engineers on Project Natal, comes from. What Mattrick and Kipman decided to try to do was to get rid of the controller altogether. They wanted a technology that would enable a gamer to control the game just by moving his or her arms and legs and other body parts. The gamer would become the controller. (Read "Why Video Games Are an Excellent Economic Indicator...
Massachusetts legislators and Smith economics professor James Miller have advocated for taxes on large universities. The current proposal calls for a 2.5- percent tax on university assets valued at over $1 billion. If the state of Washington taxes Microsoft, they argue, why should Massachusetts not tax Harvard? The answer is that we do not want Harvard to act exactly like a business, so we should not treat it like one. We expect Harvard to think of Cambridge and Allston residents and Harvard workers even in times of stress, and the tax breaks are to help Harvard meet those expectations...