Eric Badger Email and Phone Number

- Led and maintained the engineering team that developed and delivered the Windows Dynamic Lighting feature and the converged text platform for all Microsoft operating systems, including Windows 11, Xbox and Hololens.- Enabled native control of lighting devices implementing the open HID LampArray standard, collaborating with Microsoft partners including Razer, Asus, Logitech, Hyper X, Acer, MSI, Signal RGB and more to ensure compatibility and interoperability of devices and apps.- Leveraged the existing Xbox Dynamic Lighting feature and LampArray HID standard to extend its capabilities to Windows 11, providing users with a unified and consistent RGB device ecosystem across platforms.- Built an input stack and a set of input features for Windows Phone 7, Windows Phone 8, Windows Phone 10, including the acclaimed software keyboard.- Converged the text input stack with Windows and moved IMEs out of the application process and into a service process, producing significant security and reliability improvements, and enabling experience and configuration improvements in virtualization scenarios. Moved hundreds of millions of daily users onto the new stack with minimal disruption.- Enabled a new XAML based software keyboard, Emoji panel, and handwriting panel in RS3 (Fall Creator’s Update), leveraging the text intelligence features such as Shapewriting, Voice dictation, text predictions and auto correction that had originated in Windows Phone.- Shipped Eye Control in Windows Desktop (RS4), enabling users to use eye tracking hardware to control their PC, coordinating with Harish Kulkarni (MSR) and input team devs to produce the Windows Eye Control system from initial prototype to final product.

I lead the team that developed the WordFlow text prediction system for Windows Phone 7.1, 8 and 8.1With Windows Phone 8 (Apollo) and the convergence of the operating system with the NT kernel, Win32K was not converged and I designed the text input architecture to replace it. I lead the team that implemented and maintained all aspects of the text input stack in Windows Phone devices ranging from the keyboard drivers through IME and the UI of the soft keyboard and candidate window. It was truly a monumental task and the biggest challenge of my career thus far. I lead the team that implemented the Shape Writing feature of the Word Flow keyboard that enables easy text entry by dragging finger through the text. I lead the team that implemented the touch stack.

I designed and implemented the first finger keyboard for Windows Mobile 7.0 that was later adapted for Windows Phone 7, 7.5, 8, 8.1, 10. Developed the algorithms to produce the initial text prediction system for the Windows Phone. This was later known to be FuzzyDS. The FuzzyDS enabled fuzzy text input on a soft keyboard to find words in a statistical language model. Produced training application to collect touch data to use for training the touch model. Coordinated with MSR (Tim Paek) and used machine learning techniques to train the touch and language models to optimize performance and reduce errors. This system shipped in Windows Phone 7.0 and was highly acclaimed. Designed and implemented the initial IHDS (input history data source). I was a strong team collaborator and a champion for touch text input quality. As a result of my work and team collaboration, I was promoted to lead the team.

Implemented support for the bluetooth Hands free protocol with Microsoft Voice Command 1.6. Enabled usage of Voice Command from integrated Windows Mobile devices with bluetooth headset or hands free devices. Eventually Microsoft bought "Tell Me" with it's network based speech recognition system, and further development of Microsoft Voice Command was no longer necessary. I was crushed and proceeded to reinvent myself.

I ported the Microsoft Voice Command application into Windows Mobile 4.0. I enabled HTC, Samsung and Palm to ship Microsoft Voice Command in millions of Windows Mobile devices based on Windows Mobile 4.0, 5.0 and 6.0.

I started as an SDET testing a part of SAPI (speech API). I wrote interface tests in C++ to test a subset of the API surface. When the team announced a Windows CE version of the speech recognition engine and was looking for someone to take the work, I jumped on it. I went from testing a subset of SAPI to testing the whole speech engine, SAPI and language models on Windows CE. During my time in this role I was looking for "Killer Apps". I developed the first voice recognition application for Windows Phones which were built on Windows CE at that time. My application enabled voice dialing from the integrated contacts, and would parse MP3 headers to build a speech grammar for playing music. (Play the beatles, etc...) . I submitted my application to the Ozone beta (Windows Phone 2003) and it exploded. Ask Seana, he remembers. The automotive team spawned the Microsoft Voice Command product in response. I left the speech components group to realize my goal of becoming SDE.

Wow, Microsoft! Got my foot in the door. Started ramping up on Microsoft culture and helped to stand up the Realty Desktop product. Realty desktop was shut down shortly after I joined the company. It was a web business that was a casualty of the .com crash.

Was CTO in a small startup that was tapping into venture capital during the web bubble. Primarily did MSSQL and ASP development. Developed the e-commerce system behind the http://www.lonestarmusic.com/ website. Worked with a neighboring company "PhoneFree".

Contract web developers working in ASP and MSSQLMostly web+database programming for intranet applications.

Worked as contract developer building an automated online sign up system using BSD OS and CGI-bin web app written in C++. Automated sign-up included automated credit card billing. TAutomated billing processes - previously manual, each credit card was billed individually. I automated the process to enable batch billing by integrating the internal databases with credit card billing software. This was before credit card billing services were present on the internet. I learned quite a bit about databases and VB programming.

Other than Microsoft, maybe my favorite job. Access to the internet before the general public. Sat behind a desk with unlimited access to computers and network. Helped people print using Word Perfect. Trumpet TCP/IP stack on 386 machines running Windows 3.1 with some excellent Doom games.Improved my C knowledge by putting up a DIKU MUD and modifying it heavily. Learned many networking and programming concepts by creating features such as new weapon, auction and arena systems. Truly formative experience.