Microsoft researcher talks tools, telescope, and iPhone

Microsoft researcher Rick Rashid speaks to developers Wednesday at the Professional Developer Conference.

(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET News)

LOS ANGELES--As he began his speech on Wedne max 90 sday, Microsoft Research chief Rick Rashid talked up his ties, not just to Microsoft's products, but also to those from Apple.

"If you use a Macintosh or an iPhone, which honestly I would no air 180 retro t recommend, you would be using code that I wrote more than 25 years ago," Rashid quipped to a crowd of developers at the company's Professional Developer Conference here. In his Carnegie Mel air max360 lon days, Rashid helped create the Mach kernel that is at the heart of Mac OS X (Note: I originally stated that it was at the heart of FreeBSD, but others have pointed out that's not accurate).  airmax360 

Rashid noted that it's also a testimony to the staying power of core technology ideas.

"If you'd asked me 25 years ago if I thought code I was (writing, would be) running today on max360  a cell phone, my reaction would have been 'what's a cell phone?'" Rashid said.

"It just shows you things really do survive and get used in interesting ways," Rashid said.

Later in h max90 is talk, Rashid is expected to show off some of the latest technology from the labs. (I'm betting we see Microsoft's Sphere surface computer, since Microsoft started the keynote Wednesday with a than nike air max skyline eu k you note to the company that makes the display that powers Sphere.)

Update, 9:12 a.m. PDT: Microsoft put out a release noting some of the things Rashid will cover. air max skyline women >

Microsoft plans an update to its Worldwide Telescope software and also detailed the Microsoft CCR and DSS Toolkit 2008, software developer tools that aim to "make it easie air max skyline si r to develop loosely-coupled concurrent and distributed applications."

Microsoft sensor technology is being used to create maps for research and work related to protecting th air max skyline eu e environment.

(Credit: Elinor Mills/CNET News)

Other topics include: DryadLINQ (a project that enables ordinary programmers to write large-scale data parallel applications t nike air max bw o run on large PC clusters), a tool to help kids learn to program known as Boku, as well as Second Light, a surface computing research project I wrote about earlier this month.

Meanwhile, Microsoft researcher Feng Zhao is discussing how computers factor into the world's energy use. In the U.S. for example, computing uses about 1.5 percent of all electricity, according to a 2006 E retro nike air max PA report. However, computers can also be used to make other systems, such as heating and air conditioning, more efficient.

A slide of updated telescope software features.

(Credit: Elinor Mills/CNET  

 News)

Zhao showed a sensor map from Microsoft research that helped chart the temperature in the main convention hall over the last couple of days. He noted that Microsoft uses 10,000 such sensors througho nike air max tailwind 2008 ut its data centers.

"It's...good for our customers," he said. "It's also good for the world."

Update, 9:45 a.m. PDT: Rashid discussed the update to the tele nike air tailwind scope software, which Microsoft is calling the "equinox" update.

The new update, going live now, offers more than double the data of the original release, including 55 new pa nike air max tailwind 2010 noramic images from the Apollo moon and Pathfinder Mars missions.

The demos drew loud applause as Rashid showed a wide range of views, including a display of the ent nike air max tailwind 4 ire viewable universe.

During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. T 

 hese days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. Topics: Windows, Microsoft Tags: Microsoft, Rick Rashid, Microsoft Research, Sphere, OS X, Mach, iPhone, PDC2008 Share: Digg Del.icio.us Reddit Facebook Twitter