A group of student interns at Microsoft's offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts helped to create five new apps in the company's experimental Garage program, three of which are Windows apps.
In a blog post, Microsoft stated:
The internship program focuses on a symbiotic relationship between students and mentors. When they begin their internships, the students break off into teams to tackle the project ideas that excite them the most, and over the course of the internship they work closely with the sponsoring business group, which provides mentorship, guidance and domain expertise to the students. In return, the sponsoring teams benefit from the energies of young, passionate engineers who can deliver on experiments in only a few months.
The three Windows apps that the interns created for the Garage program are:
- Project Santorini: Introducing Santorini, a unique photo experience emphasizing the power of nostalgia. Santorini guides you through a fun and serendipitous photo exploration journey by using your hidden photo metadata. Enter the experience by choosing a starting photo from your OneDrive collection. Our novel dual-axis interface then allows you to fluidly navigate between photos taken in the same place and other locations. Enjoy your journey as memories flood back from your sister's wedding, your son's first day of school, or your unforgettable vacation. To re-enter from another starting point, simply return to the collage view and choose another photo. Have photos without an associated time or location? Santorini also makes it fun and easy to add that information as well. Say goodbye to endlessly scrolling through your photo collection! Start reminiscing today.
- Write Ideas: Write ideas offers students the best prewriting tool to get a jump-start on their writing assignments. Write ideas eases students through their writing assignments using structured prompts and questions. Using Write ideas, students are able to express their creativity in a variety of ways such as voice, doodles and text. Students can then export their work to email or OneNote and use it as a foundation for their writing assignments.
- Hearing AI: Hearing AI aims to connect people to the world of sound. The interface allows people to visualize the intensity of environmental sounds in order to gauge the ambience of a physical space. Hearing AI distinguishes between four different types of sound environments and notifies people if there are sudden changes or if sounds are damaging to their ears. In addition, Hearing AI uses real-time speech-to-text technology to transcribe verbal conversations with an emphasis on visualizing the loudness of speech through typography.
In addition, the intern created two web browser add-ons:
- Project Copenhagen: Project Copenhagen is the simplest way to view, attach, and share your OneDrive files to anyone with Gmail. Simplify your sharing - Attach multiple files to your emails with a few clicks of a button all within Gmail. Store files with ease - Download attachments directly to your OneDrive, right in your inbox.
- Project Oceana: Project Oceana is the quickest way to access, and keep tabs on, your Outlook inbox right from within your Chrome browser. Stay in touch - Quick glance into your Outlook inbox and preview messages with a single click of a button. Stay informed – View unread mail and receive optional push notifications whenever you receive a new e-mail. Organize effectively - Delete and flag e-mails directly from the extension.
All of the new Microsoft Garage apps are available by invitation only; you can sign up to try them out at the Garage website:
