Introducing “Conversations on Innovation”

We’re pleased to announce that Microsoft will be sponsoring a series of posts called “Conversations on Innovation,” which will be about the most cutting-edge technology developments of our day.

We’ll be publishing the pieces over the next few weeks. Beginning Wednesday, we’ll tackle our first theme: natural human interface technology. Here, touch technology and motion recognition are combining to allow impressively intelligent applications — many of which will soon be in your car, your home and mobile device. The apps span from new ways to use multiplayer games to services that can use cameras and projectors to tell you all about someone, even if they’re a stranger.

We’ll be posting pieces by our own writers as well as by independent experts. Microsoft, as a sponsor, will also contribute pieces. These pieces will all be marked as “Conversations on Innovation.”

Other themes we’ll explore in these Conversations include the cloud (where we’ll ask what needs to come together, such as policy standards and programming models, to reach our true potential with the cloud), electronic health care (the promise is ever present, and there’s political and financial momentum, so now what?), web applications-meet-the-enterprise, extreme computing (multi-core, massive data centers, utility and cloud computing are combining to allow “extreme impact,” but where?) and smart power (technology will be needed to save the planet, but where can it best be used?).

If you’re an expert in any of these areas and think you’d like to contribute a piece for this series, please let me know by emailing me.

We’ll be marketing the series with a widget that remains on our home page over the next few weeks. Tune in Wednesday for our first post!