'Future Visions: Original Science Fiction Inspired by Microsoft' now available for download

For a company that develops software like Cortana that seem nothing sort of inspired from sci-fi movies, it makes sense to use science fiction stories to narrate the vision it has. That’s exactly what Microsoft has done with ‘Future Visions: Original Science Fiction Inspired by Microsoft,’ a collection of stories touching a wide range of hot topics including machine learning, real-time translation, quantum computing, the quantified self, and more that are all inspired from the early stages of development inside Microsoft campus. The company, on Tuesday, released a free e-book version of it.

The company announced in a blogpost that eight top science-fiction authors — Elizabeth Bear, Greg Bear, David Brin, Nancy Kress, Ann Leckie, Jack McDevitt, Seanan McGuire and Robert J. Sawyer — worked on the mini-novel. The initiative was first announced in October. It is available in multiple popular e-book formats including Kindle, Kobo, and iBooks.

“The idea was to bring authors in to expose them to what some people might think is science fiction. In a way, you could say the world of Microsoft Research turns science fiction into science fact,” said Steve Clayton, chief storyteller at Microsoft. “We didn’t show them a piece of technology and ask them to please write about that. We showed them technology and introduced them to a group of people, and then asked them, what did it spark in your mind as ideas, where did it inspire you to think the technology may go?”

Head over here and grab a copy.