The new Microsoft Visitor Center

As a Redmond-virgin, I took the opportunity to check out the three Microsoft campus “must-see” destination today – Microsoft Home, Microsoft Center for Information Work and the Microsoft Visitor Center. Whilst both Home and CIW were both cool and still cutting edge, neither of which has had any major renovations for a while and there’s plenty of good coverage about what they involve, however the new Visitor Center just launched weeks ago so it’s still fresh. You can check out a gallery of photos above.

One of the most interesting installations of the new Visitor Center is the floating sphere with 3D projection. From what I could gather, it uses four projectors to cast a perspective-correct overlay on top of a large white sphere lifted in the air. Whilst it is similar to the installation at Google’s lobby with “live search terms”, this too seems to be “live” with popular Live Search queries appearing occasionally.

The other installation, more of an artistic rather technology showcase is a “video wall” that plays a pretty cool looking animation about the Microsoft experience complete with wall-to-wall mood lighting.

Both features are the works of an obviously capable design Seattle firm, Hornall Anderson. It shows in the turtle.

21 insightful thoughts

  1. Wow. Long, what is the huge bass noises through the second bit, coming in and out.
    Also, that is so awesome! Damn, you’re lucky to go there. And what is that turtle bit for btw? Like what product or product group?

  2. @Nicko: Turtle is a new product coming out of Microsoft for managing zoos. No just kidding, it’s just decoration.

  3. Wow, that Visitor Center is awesome. Maybe they should consider turning them into flagship stores across the world, to showcase and sell Microsoft stuff. I could imagine a bunch of great high-end computers running Windows + Office, an Xbox Arcade for all things Xbox, ZuneZone for all things Zune, WinMo Bar for displaying WinMo phones, a bunch of Surface tables to play with, racks of all kinds of software for Windows, and all kinda stuff where Microsoft can be directly at the consumer level, instead of being channeled through other third party stores.

  4. Hey Long,

    You should have seen what the old Visitor Center/Company Store looked like.

    It was really really small. I mean tiny.

    I need to stop by the new one on my next contract just to peek.

  5. I agree with QuickBoy. This would make a great Microsoft store. There could be an XBox room, mobile phone room, and a home room that shows how media center, home server work together. They have a lot of cool products that so many people do not know about and I have friends who have no idea that their XBox is a media center extender because a lot of people do not read the manual.

Comments are closed.