Announcing the Microsoft Research
series from Microsoft Press

To help celebrate Microsoft Research's 20th anniversary, Microsoft Press is launching a new book series devoted to the work of Microsoft researchers. Microsoft Research has more than 850 researchers, including some of the world's finest computer scientists, sociologists, psychologists, mathematicians, physicists, and engineers, working across more than 60 areas of research. The Microsoft Research series will share their thoughts and efforts in accordance with the following series vision:

At Microsoft Research, we're driven to imagine and invent. Our desire is to create technology that helps people realize their full potential and to advance the state of the art in computer science. This series shares the insights of Microsoft researchers as they explore the new and the transformative.

Published in September 2011, the first book in the series is The future of looking back, by Richard Banks, Interaction Designer at Microsoft Research:

How will we be remembered now that we live increasingly digital lives? As we shift from leaving physical artifacts to virtual ones-bits rather than atoms-what will replace the shoeboxes full of photos and the stack of vinyl records that connect us with our past? How will our new digital heirlooms change the way we reminisce and reflect on our lives and the lives of those we care about? Get a look inside Microsoft researcher Richard Banks' thinking on how we might manage the digital legacies we're creating now-and how we might pass on or inherit them in the future.

 

The book's foreword is by Bill Buxton, principal researcher at Microsoft. An excerpt:

Richard's argument is that the future we get is the one that we design. If we ask the right questions and inform our decisions from a careful consideration of our true values, we can shape our technologies accordingly. Most appropriately, he makes his arguments around that most human of values and needs: weaving a thread of connectivity-emotional, intellectual, and tangible-from our past, through our present, to our future.

Future books in the series are being created by Roger Barga and Tony Hoare.

Microsoft Research books will be available in print and electronic formats via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, O'Reilly Media, and other book retailers. The future of looking back is available now via these same avenues: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and O'Reilly.

Microsoft Press is honored to celebrate the work of Microsoft researchers with this series.