Academics to get a glimpse of Microsoft's Sphere

Microsoft's Andy Wilson shows off the technology behind Sphere, a globe-like surface computer developed by Microsoft Research. A group of academics gathered in Redmond this week will be among the first outside Microsoft to see the technology.

(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET News)

REDMOND, Wash.-- A group of academics will be among the first people outside Microsoft to see Sphere, a spherical surface computer developed by Microsoft Research.

The sphere-shaped, multitouch computer is similar to the tabletop Surface computer that Microsoft announced last year after years in development. This incarnation, however, remains a project within Microsoft Research and the company has no current plans to bring it to market.

The university researchers are at Microsoft as part of its yearly Faculty Summit. Also at the event, Microsoft announced a series of tools for researchers, including a plug-in for Office that lets people embed a Creative Commons license directly into their Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents.

The software maker also announced a hosted e-Journal service to allow online academic publications and conference proceedings to more easily be published.

As for Sphere, attendees will get to see that starting Tuesday as part of an exhibit hall at the event. However, I had a chance on Friday to sit down with surface computing pioneer Andy Wilson, who showed me some of the technology powering Sphere, which was developed in large part by Wilson's colleague, Hrvoje Benko.

Sphere shares much in common with the tabletop Surface that is now being used in places like AT&T retail stores. At its core is a projector that beams the "screen" onto a globe-like display. As with Surface, infrared cameras are used to sense input, although the ones in Sphere are less precise than those used in the commercial Surface.

Sphere can run the same kinds of programs as Surface, such as a photo-sharing application in which multiple users can rotate, stretch, and move pictures. Its spherical shape though makes it more practical for some uses, such as gaming and mapping, and less useful for others.

Bill Gates has talked about a vision for surface computing that stretches far beyond the high-end commercial applications of Surface and in several years' time would have many, many of today's surfaces becoming computerized, both at home and at work.

I'll have quite a bit more on Sphere and my visit with Wilson in a follow-up post.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Why is it that some of the coolest stuff out there is made with "no current plans to bring it to market" ? Sure, I can't see any practical use for it, but you gotta admit, a glowing sphere with a display on it is pretty damned cool. Straight out of a sci-fi movie, in fact.

That said, I can also see geeks in their living room running their hands over the surface of it, "My preshuus.... my preshuus..."

[macraven--2008]

How about looking at it and saying "Auntie Em! Auntie Em!"
Gotta have the Wicked Witch of the West as a screen saver on that baby!

[The_happy_switcher]

Or as it will unaffectionately be known: B.A.S. (Big Ass Sphere)?you know, something to compliment your B.A.T. (Big Ass Table)

[Vegaman_Dan]

The B.A.T. as you put it, is pretty darn nifty if you ever get a chance to use it. Imagine an iPhone that is huge and multiple people can use it at once. It's pretty hard to explain really. It's something you must experience in person.

[bj1126]

This has tons of potential. I can't wait to see where they go with this.

[vtchuck2000]

You would need a corresponding 360 degree table to access all points of this globe, so I guess it won't replace my desktop anyhow.

[Kwasiowusu]

Agree with the first poster. Why on earth is Microsoft wasting shareholders money on stuff that they have "no plans to bring to the market", even while they still can't build a decent search engine to effectively take on Google, and at a time when Microsoft?s earnings came in below market expectations leading to a sharp 6% fall in Microsoft share price the day after the results and Microsoft?s share price continues to stumble and fall?
Like someone pointed out before, lots of the executives at Microsoft would be out of business and on the streets in almost every company out there. Microsoft has never made a loss, they have a huge amount of cash at the bank, they always grow revenues, and they have never had a major staff layoff all from the guaranteed money they keep making from Windows and Office. Microsoft executives have essentially grown fat, lost their street smarts, their survival instincts and the ability for sharp elbowed competition and winning. They are like, hey, whether we make money in our division or not, the huge profits from Windows and Office will save our butts.
For example, I challenge anyone to show me any executives in the history of business in America, who have lost to the tune of over $6 Billion(like Robbie Bach, Kim Shane and the other clowns who run the XBOX business, have lost on the XBOX over the past 6 years), even while those executives still not only NOT lost their jobs, they actually keep getting promoted, with no danger whatsoever of them getting fired for losing such gargantuan amounts of shareholders money.
The beauty of all this is, after losing all these vast sums of money, the XBOX 360 is still being destroyed in the market by Nintendo's Wii, which continues to sell over THREE times as many units as the XBOX 360 every month, even while the Wii rakes in money by the bucket load for Nintendo as well. Robbie Bach and Kim Shane?s mantra of ?we are not competing in the same market as the Wii? is just nonsensical. Why on earth would Microsoft not compete in games a market segment, that is making vast amounts of money for Nintendo, even while selling humongous amounts of consoles and games, and has managed to more than double Nintendo?s share price since the Wii was launched? Does Robbie Bach have anything against making money for shareholders?

[Vegaman_Dan]

Well, you took my comment completely out of context in your diatribe. I thought the device was actually cool and neat. A shame that they don't have plans to take it to market at this time, but there are lots of pet projects out there that companies have like this. The iPhone was one such device for Apple. They didn't intend to release that to the market when they were first working on prototypes either. Give it time. There may be a market for something like this yet.

[rapier1]

They do work like this because it will lead to technology that they can bring to market. Its called R&D.

[kojacked]

Here's a clue: It's like a concept car... You see a lot of those on the road don't ya?

[The_Decider]

It is good to see you have finally admitted that XBOX is a money loser.

[The_Decider]

The only thing of any true value to come from MS R&D is a project based on mesh networking. It has gone nowhere precisely because its market is poor villages in third world countries and therefore no profit opportunity.

MS thought the BAT would be a huge seller and it hasn't even met modest expectations. It does have its uses but its size and complexity limits it in a very limited market.

Thie BAS will likely be another extremely niche product that doesn't really go anywhere, at best.

Given that R&D should not be judged on the same merits as products going to market. However, MS should be careful as their dominance on the desktop and office space is dwindling slowly.

[crue24]

I am certainly not an MS defender because although windows pays my bills, I use mac at home. However, a potential defense to your argument in favor of the executives you mentioned, is that Microsoft is often willing to lose money to make money. That was the philosophy when they got into gaming like many of their other markets. Lose money up front and then we'll rake it in in the long term. Problem is, even though they probably got a huge benefit beating Sony to the table with the delayed PS3, no one expected Wii to bust out of the gates the way they did. In defense of Sony and MS, who tried to go hard core tech with the next gen, no one expected and Nintendo crushed by going low tech. Graphics are far from exceptional and the technology is nothing new, but they made REAL simple games that everyone thought were fun. I know tons of people who never owned gaming systems that bought Wii's because the games were very simple and fun. It was an entirely new market and the because the tech was simple the price was low enough that people didn't think about buying one. Funny thing, at $250 people say no problem, jump to $400 and suddenly its too expensive. I'm in the 30+ age so the difference is really peanuts, but its a mental thing. Gamers will pay whatever, but mass market, even those who earn big dollars, a game is a game and that $$$ makes a huge difference.

Basically what I'm saying is Nintendo is killing because they brought gaming to a whole new market plus the regular gaming market. Sony and MS focused solely on the hardcore who want graphics that look like the real thing and require high dollar graphics chips, processors, blue ray, etc. Nintendo, on purpose or by accident captured an entirely new audience as well as the old audience. It was a good move.

You can't necessarily blame the unit heads if the senior management is screaming steal marketshare even at the expense of profit. MS wanted to steal from Sony, even if it cost them a fortune to do it. They (or Sony) never expected Wii to come out with a simple system that would appeal to such a wide new audience.

Having said all that in defense of the MS execs, I prefer mac to MS and don't particularly care for ms at all!

[rapier1]

I've actually used a sphere projector like this before. Essentially they are special lenses and a translucent globes that fit onto a LCD projector. You see these sort of projectors in science museums. They're really good for certain types of data display - globes, star maps, branching data maps, etc. What MS is bringing to the table is a way to interact directly with the projection surface instead of using a mouse or some other input device. What's really interesting about this is that you have something that simply can't be done with Apple's multi-touch because it relies on a physical touch screen. I think what they are showing here is a way to turn almost *any* surface into a multi-touch/touch surface. Which is kind of cool and I can see some really interesting applications for this down the road.

[kojacked]

Finally something really useful! A crystal ball!!! Now IT will finally get it right.

[Llib Setag]

Finally...The Death Star Mock Up is complete...

Universal Domination is within my grasp!
Darth "BaldyBot Ballmer" Vader.

OR, is a robotic mock up of Ballmer "BaldyBot" complete with chrome dome?

OR, was this that big crystal ball they used on the Wizard of OZ by the Wicked Witch?

[Vegaman_Dan]

All those are good, but I think I like the Death Star reference the best.

[joey21a]

buddy and his beach ball look like something destined for the history books. The freakin' globe is so large we would all need to buy larger desks, offices and buildings - sound familiar?

[Kev Orng]

Neat... but why?

I'm happy to announce that this was my idea. I published it in a paper titled "The Globall Hyperatlas: A development proposal" in the Springer journal The Visual Computer 8, 1-7 (1991) and mailed copies to Bill Gates, Nathan Myhrvold, Al Gore, and others. I guess all good things come to he who waits. Pity I get no royalties ...

PS: Anyone who prefers not to pay $25 to Springer for an e-copy of my paper can download it for free here: http://www.andyross.net/glob.pdf (705 KB)