Innovation is an overused buzzword these days. What does it mean, really? Well, Microsoft Research is in the business of scientific discovery which often leads to innovations that end up in the hands of computer users (or not in the hands of the computer users as the case may be). One area of scientific focus at Microsoft Research, Computer Vision, has brought us the popular gaming controller device Kinect. Kinect has changed the evolutionary path of human computer interaction. It is in some sense a peripheral device used to control computers, like a mouse or keyboard, but it turns the user into the controller and enables the computer to understand natural user intention. Come learn from the scientists behind Kinect what it means for all of us going forward. There’s much more to this brave new world of human computer interaction than playing games on the Xbox 360. Microsoft Research will also present and demo new prototype development technologies for JavaScript analysis and automatically improving web site performance, plug-in free, of course. We also talk about our design content at MIX, called the UX Lightning Series. We’ve lined up 12 expert speakers to present on various design and UX topics to stimulate creative thinking in a compelling format that will keep things moving along very quickly with a new speaker hitting the stage every 10 minutes. The result? Less fluff, less syntax, and much more creative and inspiring content!So, what’s the biking about? Nothing other than our studio got a new green screen and we thought it’d be fun. But, if you watch very closely, there is a difference between Mike and Jennifer’s cycling. If you can be the first to guess correctly what that variance is by posting in the forum below, a MIX11 shirt could be yours. Good luck!