A BRASSY fanfare blared and spotlights careened around the venue as the stars of the show took to the stage. Outside, the stairs were lined with 2-metre-high posters of the performers, and inside massive video walls ensured no one missed any of the action. But this was no Hollywood extravaganza. It was the welcome afforded Microsoft vice-president Rick Rashid as he launched the Computing in the 21st Century roadshow at Beijing鈥檚 Tsinghua University earlier this month. Such is the thirst for technological knowledge in today鈥檚 China that experts in the field are treated like celebrities.
Rashid was addressing 3400 students and academics at the first event in the tour, which is run by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and sponsored by Microsoft. Also on the bill were Chuck Thacker, co-recipient of the 2004 Draper prize for his pioneering work in personal computing at Xerox; Victor Zue, co-director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Jitendra Malik, chair of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. Rashid outlined a future where everything and everyone will be connected through PCs, hand-held wireless devices and sensors, enabling the free flow and democratisation of information. He invited the computer scientists present to make sure it happens.
Say again? You may think it a little odd for Microsoft to be joining forces with a government known for its internet censorship (see 鈥淐hinese whispers鈥�) and its tolerance of software piracy. But the Chinese government recognises that information technology is crucial to a successful economy and it seems willing to sacrifice at least some control over digital communications if it means its economy can be brought up to speed. The tension is seen by many as the key to opening up China for good.
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China鈥檚 universities are home to 19 million students, compared with 14 million in the US. And the quality of undergraduates at Tsinghua already surpasses that of Harvard University, says Nobel physics laureate Chen Ning Yang, a tour speaker who has taught in both countries.
Two days after packing the Beijing venue, Rashid and colleagues spoke to an audience of more than 2700 in the rising high-tech metropolis of Chengdu. There was reportedly a black market for tickets, and one student even approached us asking for a way in.
鈥淭his is truly, truly a phenomenon,鈥� marvels another presenter, Ya-Qin Zhang, who directed Microsoft鈥檚 flourishing research lab in Beijing for nearly four years. It is a phenomenon that has not escaped the rest of corporate America. IBM, Intel and Lucent Technologies鈥� Bell Labs have all opened Chinese research arms in the past decade.
None, though, has moved as aggressively as Microsoft. Its Beijing lab, with 270 staff and 200 student researchers, has published some 950 research papers on user interfaces, graphics and multimedia. Much of their work may turn up in the next, supposedly more secure, version of Windows.
鈥淚n Chengdu, there was reportedly a black market for tickets, and one student even approached us for a way in鈥�
The company has also signed deals with China鈥檚 ministry of education to establish five jointly run computer science labs at universities around the country. One of the more modest projects is at Fudan University in Shanghai, where Microsoft is investing $10,000 鈥� which in China is enough to pay three graduate students and one undergraduate for a year 鈥� in work on creating a 3D graphics engine that allows cellphones and PDAs to run advanced games. Microsoft can license any technology developed, and sees such projects as a way to identify potential new recruits.
On a far grander scale is a multimillion-dollar Microsoft-NSFC project at Harbin Institute of Technology to produce the world鈥檚 largest Mandarin-English database, which is intended to pave the way for more accurate machine translation of text documents. Microsoft has also poured millions of dollars into an effort to create a powerful distributed supercomputer by linking thousands of PCs at Chinese universities.
Some Chinese university officials privately voice concerns about western companies exploiting home-grown talent, but they also acknowledge that events like the computing roadshow inspire students. Many believe the support of western companies will put Chinese computer science 鈥� and the nascent high-tech industry 鈥� on fast forward.
Tour speakers Thacker, Zue and Malik were all astonished at the rise, and potential, of Chinese computer science. 鈥淭he world in 20 years will be different. In terms of the US, instead of looking to Europe, it will mean a greater percentage of the action is in Asia. That鈥檚 obvious,鈥� says Malik.
Digital calligraphy
The hottest project demonstrated on Microsoft鈥檚 China tour was, surprisingly, a piece of hardware. From Jian Wang鈥檚 team at Microsoft Research Asia in Beijing, the 鈥渦niversal pen鈥� captures text in a digital file as it is being hand-written on paper. A camera in the pen鈥檚 tip operating 120 times a second feeds information to an on-board processor, which then sends the text wirelessly to a PC. To do this it requires paper with a special background pattern printed on it.
Unlike a similar offering from Anoto of Sweden (New 杏吧原创, 15 April 2000, p 6), Microsoft claims the pen lets you mark up an existing document and automatically incorporates the changes into the digital version. The pen was initially developed for Asian-language characters, which can be difficult to input using a keyboard, but it works for the Roman alphabet as well.
Expect to see it on the market in around two years鈥� time.
