It’s kind of pollution-y here. I still need to figure out if I’m headed straight for Microsoft Research or heading to my accommodations first.

The last time I went to China, I was 1 year old. Foreign travel is new to me.

Check back often. I’ll be documenting everything here on my blog.

2007 Speech by Powerset CEO at the University of Washington

Part of me wants to say something along the lines of “Tying two stones together does not make them float.” However, in the back of my mind there’s still the possibility Microsoft is putting together something that can compete. After all, the Live team, who acquired a license for Photo Tourism to make Photosynth, which has been a huge hit and reputation-booster, will most likely be in charge of the new search division.

The Clowd, a phrase that seems to be a mashup by Seth Godin between “crowd” and “cloud,” represents the near-future widespread use of distributed data processing and natural media correlation techniques.

One of the natural media correlation techniques that I think has influenced Seth is Photo Tourism, otherwise known as Microsoft Photosynth, a project I was fortunate enough to be a part of.

Today I logged into Google Docs and found a prompt that offered a taste of Google Docs with offline capabilities, courtesy of Google Gears.

Microsoft should be shaking in its boots. Office is one of MS’s biggest money makers, and if people find that Google Docs, which no longer requires a net connection, is a fitting application for everyday office collaboration, sales of MS Office are set to plummet.

Update: Yahoo rejected the offer. A collective sigh of relief was felt across the Internet.