There was some good news on the Irish job front today as Microsoft announced they will be setting up a team in Ireland to lead a new project that they hope to have running by the end of the year. Microsoft plan to create a new app, exclusively for their phones, that will allow users to control asteroids in space. The project is expected to bring in at least €40 billion into the Irish economy as Microsoft plan to carry out the entire project from their buildings in Dublin.
Microsoft was very late to the mobile market when they arrived on the scene a couple of years ago. By the time they got their foot in the door, Apple and Android devices were dominating the market. This new asteroid app will attempt to entice new customers to take on Apple and Google in the mobile market. Bill Gates, the former CEO of Microsoft, is coming back to the company to personally oversee this Asteroid App. It has been dream of his to control an asteroid ever since Microsoft began.
A very enthusiastic Gates contacted Oxygen.ie about the new project and said, “It gives me great pleasure to think that we are on the brink of making this a reality. Imagine the joy I will bring to the world when people use the technology we produce to control the rocks that the gods have sent us. I look forward to getting stuck into this project.”
Microsoft plan to control the asteroids by placing microchips into them. This might sound complicated but Gates assured us that it is very simple and that Microsoft did it to the moon back in the late 80s. Gates said that if he wanted to, he could make the moon either float off into orbit or crash into the Earth with his laptop, depending on what mood he is in on a certain day.
Many critics are concerned that this technology is not solid. Windows systems have a tendency to break down frequently and this could prove to have dire effects when asteroids are involved.
Hollywood studios have already announced that they will be producing a disaster film, depicting what could go wrong. It will star Johnny Depp as an asteroid hacker and Bill Gates playing himself. A sneak preview of the film can be seen in the clip beloew.