Today was the first day of company visits. It started with an earlier morning than the day before with an 8:00 mark off and a 9:45 muster in the lobby. Jake and I were still experimenting with our breakfast, however, and we ended up with rice, pork patties, toast and tater tots. We had also added some yoghurt with fruit, though jake experimented with some jam mixed in as well. We finished breakfast quickly and, after a cup of the terrible coffee, we were off. Today we had the pleasure of visiting 2 massive companies. Microsoft and Adobe. Microsoft was first on the schedule so after a short ride on the bus we arrived at their mountain view campus. while driving to the building we took note of the many private taxis and shuttle services Microsoft had running. Arriving at our building we departed the bus and waited for our host with some photos in front of the logo on the building

When our guide arrived we were escorted inside their Customer Experience Centre. We were introduced to our guide before collecting our badges and making our way past the gates into the heart of the building. We were guided past some conference rooms to a set of stairs leading to the floor above. Emblazoned black upon the wall in front of us was the quote

“Empower every person to and every organisation on the planet to achieve more”

Microsoft announced it as their mission statement and what they believe to be their push to do better always. We were introduced to the man in charge of us, Michael De La Cruz, and John Payes who was the Director of the Experience Center. They took us through a brief history of the company and the hardships the company had fought through to get to its dominant position on the market. Michael explained Bill Gates and Paul Allens vision for every person to have a Personal Computer (PC) in their home. He also explained their vision for the future. Microsoft is heavily investing in AI and exploring how it can be used to enhance what exists and create new things in the future. After the briefing we gathered together to take a commemorative photo.

We moved on through the building. Our first stop was an exploration of some AI tech that was in development to assist people who have problems with their eyesight. It was able to read documents aloud, read barcodes and identify products, and even provide a live audio describing the scene that was placed in front of it. We were then guided to Microsoft’s collaborations with big Pharma in the US. Microsoft was developing AI that could be used to identify defects on items within assembly lines, at a faster and more accurate rate than their human counterparts, saving money and time as well as preventing issues that could arise further down the supply chain. After being enthralled with the details we were led to their next piece of AI integration in Big Pharma. Microsoft was developing, and has released the Beta, of an app that is able to transcribe doctors visits and document all the information that is provided. By just having the regular consultation with the phone in the room it was able to distinguish between 2 parties discussing an issue and the prescribed resolution as well as producing correct documentation to increase the efficiency of the process.

Our second last stop on the tour was a demonstration of a more commercial AI use, in the form of Air Hockey. Microsoft is currently in development of a robot that is able to verse a human in a game of air hockey at different difficulties. While it is currently not as advanced as the one in Questacon it is likely to surpass it in the coming years, and even be available for commercial sale in the near future.

The final stop was a demonstration of Microsoft’s antivirus and cybersecurity technologies. We were taken to an incredible setup where we were shown an example of a phishing attack on an employee and how easy it was to corrupt the network and break in. The person in charge demonstrated how quickly the attacker could gain access to secure parts of the companies infrastructure and deploy ransomware. We were then shown how Microsoft’s Sentinel software could be used to eliminate the threat and actively monitor threats company wide. The man explained how Microsoft has more than just a protection in place and is actively working with the NSA, FBI and Interpol to attack the agencies and take out the threats before they can attack.

While this marked the end of our tour we were given free reign over the floor and allowed to explore all they had on offer. There was one section that we hadn’t been able to see where it showed the global use of the code sharing platform GitHub. It had a leaderboard of the current most viewed pages so we attempted some trickery to get our teachers page to the top, though we unfortunately failed. After a brief stop at the snack bar and the collection of a drink from the minibar, we were whisked off to the Adobe building. There was little time between the two companies, and because we had bought lunch the night before, we ate in the public park across the street from Adobe. When our lunch wrapped up we made our way through the front door and met with our guide for the tour.

We were given some stick-on badges, that would be a pain to remove later, and we were escorted to our first stop, the Adobe museum. It seemed to be a new part of the building, and as our tour guide explained, they wanted people to be able to stop by to see what was happening. The coolest part of the mini museum was the interactive room. There was a host of cameras that located your position and caused a subsequent reaction of petals across the wall. We were given some time to just explore before we were led to the next part of the tour, an exploration upstairs. We headed up to the 7th floor in 2 groups. They had an electronic system external to the lifts and therefore had no buttons on the inside. When we got off on the 7th floor we were shown the restaurants/break area for the employees.

They had a wide array of cuisine from which their employees could choose. They had Indian, Mexican, Italian, Make-Your-Own-Salad Bar, a store where you could just walk in and grab stuff. It was Incredible. As with Microsoft we were encouraged to grab something, but most of us just took a small snack from the store. We exited from the 7th floor onto their bridge across to their other buildings. Outside was a couch that had been engineered to look like a hard plastic one but was actually extremely soft and comfortable. We were taken across to the basketball court and told about the other amenities the Adobe offers onsite to its employees. They had a complimentary Gym, Gaming room, meditation room, Quiet room, free parking, Restaurants in all buildings, a Bar. It left us all wondering how people managed to actually get work done. We were also taken around to view the veggie patches that were occasionally used by the restaurants onsite in the meals. We were taken through one of the newer buildings where we took the elevator down to level 2. We were shown their upside-down room, where things had been nailed to the roof so that when a photo was taken and flipped, the room would appear the right way up, and the person would be defying gravity.

This marked the end of our tour and we were led back up through the buildings to where our tour had begun. We took one last photo in front of the Adobe Logo before we were gifted with some goodie bags. They contained an Adobe Pencil, Adobe Pad and and Adobe Pin. It was all pretty cool and we thanked our guides before giving them a goodie bag of our own. Inside was a couple Code Cadets caps, a framed photo of the group in front of the Golden Gate, and some other stickers and swag. With that we bid our farewells and returned to the hotel.

Dinner today was a group meal planned at another classic American chain, BlackBear. We had a little downtime before this, however, so we all made our way down to a nearby Safeway to pick up whatever bits and bobs we may require. Some of the group needed to get some cash out to tip housekeeping so we stopped by a Bank of America to get some money out, though disaster struck. Some peoples travel money cards had the “feature” of not being able to withdraw money. It made it a massive pain for them to figure out how they were going to use cash though a bargain was struck among friends to figure it out. We slowly made our return with our products and had a little time before we left for dinner to get changed into some more comfortable clothes.

We walked to BlackBear, about a 15 minute walk, and made our way in. We were seated quickly, but when the menus were brought out we were in for a shock. The menu had been printed on a small font on newspaper and was about the size as an A3 piece of paper, and if that wasn’t enough, there were items with the exact same name across the menu. Needless to say it was a difficult experience. Something did catch my eye, however, in the form of a Chicken fried Steak. I have never had something like this but I have been told by my many American friends that it is an excellent dish. It came with some broccoli and carrots so I figured it was the best time as any to give it a shot. We placed our order, and while waiting we discussed the company visits so far. The general agreement was that Microsoft was interesting but Adobe was treating it like a job advertisement and just showing us the fun side of their work. The meals arrival promptly brought an end to the discussion, however, and I have to say, that the steak was perhaps the worst steak I have ever had in my life. It was terribly cooked, the outside was not crispy and it was lathered in this white gravy that just did not taste good. The mash, carrots and broccoli were all good though so there was some good after all. At the conclusion of the meal, Damian once again decided that no dessert would probably be for the best and we departed. On the short walk back to the hotel we walked past an active arrest. There were 4 different police cars that sped into the parking lot of a nearby Maccas and arrested a person.

We stopped for a bit to watch the proceedings but after being told by Damian that it’s the one thing not to do while traveling, we made the short walk back to the hotel and grabbed our books before heading down to the room for a final briefing of the day. Microsoft had sent us a form they wanted us to complete and we also had to prepare for the day after. NetApp and Cisco promised to be our earliest start yet so with an early curfew for tonight we split and headed upstairs. Ollie was not in the best state of mind so it was just Jun, Jake and I for poker once again.

Goodnight