Hardware Prototyping & Testing Center - Microsoft
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,238 words · ~6 min read
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so Microsoft brought us down to their Redmond campus for a special event that
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I thought was just going to be a condensed version of their Hollow lens
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demo pretty cool but we weren't going to be able to film that I had no idea that
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they were going to bring us on an exclusive tour of their Advanced
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prototyping center and hardware engineering Labs this was so cool and it
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was absolutely unexpected let's go see what they had in store for us
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Intel skull Canyon knock features a sixth generation core i7 processor and
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Thunderbolt 3 learn more in the link in the video description our first stop was
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their 3D printing room much of their rapid prototyping and concept models are
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realized In This Very Room I tried to find more information about these
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specific printers that they used online but was not all that successful what
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they did tell me was that they could print at down to 14 microns for
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incredibly details and that they could print a wide range of colors all at the
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same time these 3D printers use UV light to cure the plastic as it is extruded
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and each one of these printers costs about
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$200,000 meaning that all eight of them cost about $1.6 million that's only you
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know slightly more than our $3,000 ultimaker 2 next up we have the CNC room
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or computer numerical control this is where they run very various prototypes
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of different Metal Products the only thing they would show us currently being
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milled was the keyboard for a Microsoft Surface Book everything else was covered
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up in different ways and made very abundantly clear that we were not
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allowed to film them which is fair on the table they gave us a demo of the
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process of taking a solid block of magnesium and turning it into the body
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for a Surface Book all the way down to the circular is pattern cut into the
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body that helps shed some weight while keeping the whole unit nice and strong
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but this isn't the end for the CNC room they'll build something in here and then
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find some problems with it and try to solve them which anyone who has done
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prototyping or programming knows is just going to introduce more problems which
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then need to be solved as well this process to get down to a good level will
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take about 18 months during which they will also do durability tests where they
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will test both what it can take and also what it can't learning what the product
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cannot sustain can be rather helpful for further iterations and to be honest it's
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just fun I'm sure this had something to do with it speaking of iterations though
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they also showed off the design process for yet again the Surface Book this area
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featured a tiny fraction of the prototypes that they actually had for
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this device considering they were doing day-by-day iterations on that 18-month
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design cycle that I mentioned earlier there were also large scale demos of
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small features like the the surface locking mechanism that were just
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straight up cool this area was great because it helped us see into the minds
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of the designers and the engineers working on the project as they evolve
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from idea to idea like the spine of the Surface Book looking like well the spine
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of a normal book Moving onwards we have
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the human factors room where they specialize in anthropometrics or the
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measurement of a human individual they have tons of measuring devices in here
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including a special room with 36 cameras mounted all around a chair they use this
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room to measure Austin's head with these accurate measuring tools they can find
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what tolerances they need to build into their products like say an Xbox
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controller they also have a room in here that we weren't allowed to record in
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that can go from near Darkness to
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65,000 Lux and can change in color temperature from 2,800 to 6200 Kelvin
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holy sh moving on from there we have the
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audio Labs now Microsoft has over 25 anaco Chambers but the main one that we
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looked at today cost over $1.5
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million it's the quietest place on Earth
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they can use this room to measure down to -20 DB meaning they can literally
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hear air particles moving oh my God
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that's insane anyways this helps them study how the human brain processes
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sounds how different shapes of products can affect their audio and more and and
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last but not least we have the soft room and the paint room where they test color
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concepts and texture possibilities for a wide range of products like keyboard
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covers for surface and various fabrics and textures on things like Hollow lands
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and the uh well now seemingly
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discontinued Microsoft band this tour was awesome and completely unexpected it
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was fun to hang out with Austin and judner for the day and it didn't end
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here either next we checked out the garage but to find out what that is
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you'll have to stay tuned for another video do you want a beautiful website
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today if you do decide to sign up for Squarespace make sure to use our offer
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code LTT that gets you 10% off your first purchase thanks for watching guys
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if this video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit
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that like button and let me let me know why in the comments down below I know
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this was more of a factory tour kind of thing but we were completely not ready
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for that and didn't have enough time to film on site so let me know how that
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went overall check out the link down below to see where to buy stuff I guess
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like surface and Xbox controllers or something on Amazon also linked in the
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description is our merch store so you can buy cool shirts like this one and
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our community Forum where you can talk about Microsoft's prototyping lab or the
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fact that their watch thing is disc continued and stuff like that if you're
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wondering what to watch next click this it's another one of our factory tours
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either the Sennheiser one or the Omron one whoever edits this will'll put one
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of them there