Microsoft Tech.Ed kicks off with a celebration of 'all things geek'

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 31 August 2011 07:33

Business IT - Technology

Compered by self-confessed geek Adam Spencer, the keynote session at Microsoft's Tech.Ed conference celebrated the geek.

At age of 7, "I ran off down the street named Geek," said Mr Spencer. Passion, obsession, relentless curiosity characterise the geek, he said, befire introducing three quite different geeks.

'Beached Az' creator Jarod Green described the way what began as a $16 weekend project became a serious enterprise. He realised that he could take advantage of the Internet and services such as YouTube rather than relying on traditional media industry models, and set out to make his idea touch as many different online platforms as possible. "The internet is curiosity's playground," he said.

Jane Cockburn, senior product engineer at 'bionic ear' company Cochlear, said the Cochlear implant is the only device in the world that effectively restores a human sense, and that hearing is very important to human interaction.

All Cochlear users are slightly different, she said, and therefore need personalised software to process the audio signals. That software needs to be updated regularly, whether to take advantage of improvements in the technology, or compensate for changes in the user's hearing.

The company aims to make that software easier to use, with more automation behind the scenes, and Ms Cockburn spoke of the possibility of using the cloud to take the process closer to users' homes.

Page 2: the programmer who wrote a book for children.