Yesterday at Microsoft’s TechFest the behemoth company
discussed its
concept for an operating system they’ve decided to call
Singularity. This is a meme grab that will not go un-noticed by the
growing mass of Singularity-aware. 
In tech and futurist circles the word singularity is almost
always synonymous with the technological singularity – a concept
coined by mathematician Vernor Vinge
that’s been the basis for innumerable theoretical and sci-fi
scenarios and exalted for its societal implications. Inventor and
technology theorist Ray
Kurzweil has also used it to mean “a period of extremely rapid
technological progress, implied by a long-term pattern of
accelerating change.”
There’s even an entire institute dedicated to furthering the
study of such a possibility.
Research for Microsoft’s Singularity apparently began
in 2003 as ground-work for a “highly-dependable operating
system in which the kernel, device drivers, and applicatios are all
written in managed code.” In other words, this is a significant
product.
“Singularity is not the next Windows,”
said senior VP Rick Rashid, in a statement. “Think of it like a
concept car. It is a prototype operating system designed from the
ground up to test-drive a new paradigm for how operating systems
and applications interact with one another. We are making it
available to the community in the hope that it will enable
researchers to try out new ideas quickly.”
Microsoft did not choose the Singularity brand for their
forthcoming OS by accident. Bill Gates is hip to acceleration, has
spoken at length with Kurzweil and is surely betting the
Singularity meme will grow proportionately to technology. It’s like
buying a gigantic domain name for a bargain-basement price.
So now it’s up to Microsoft to deliver a kick-ass application
that lives up to the name. Rest assured that all the
Singularity-aware will be following this one closely.
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