While we currently live in a world where technology is already a centerpiece in the workplace and at home, people and companies are already developing new ideas on how these products could look like in the near future. Naturally, Microsoft has an interest in examining how the future of technology and how it will affect the lives of people around the world.

Today, Microsoft announced the opening of its revamped Envisioning Center in its headquarters in Redmond, Washington. It's a joint project of Microsoft Research and several other company divisions that showcases what Microsoft thinks will be the future trends in technology in both the workplace and at home.

In Microsoft's future version of the office workplace, employees will work on huge touchscreen desks and walls. These products can also be used via voice commands or by connecting products such as a Microsoft Surface tablet or a Windows Phone device.

In a home setting, Microsoft's Envisioning Center has 4K displays for watching movies or video chats with family and friends. An interactive wall can be manipulated by touch and voice to show family pictures and notes or to look up a recipe for dinner. Even the kitchen tablet can become an interactive product to show how to cook a meal or to show the temperature of your frying pan.

Microsoft also thinks that retail stores can also offer interactive displays in the future when a person goes out shopping, which Microsoft believes will help to augment the overall shopping experience.

So how likely is it that all of these future technology product will show up in our workplace or home? We certainly think that a 4K TV display with interactive features isn't that far away, and elements of the huge touchscreens at work and at home will almost certainly appear in the real world someday. The question is what will the final form of these future visions really be like five or 10 years from now.

Source: Microsoft