Andy Wilson, a researcher from Microsoft Research's Redmond, Wash., campus, demonstrates LaserTouch. An infrared camera tracks how he touches the screen to prompt a response from the software.
(Credit: Stefanie Olsen/CNET News.com)MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Microsoft researchers on Thursday demonstrated a new, low-cost method for manipulating a digital desktop or wall display with two hands.
Called LaserTouch, the prototype is the latest invention of computer vision specialist Andy Wilson, a researcher from Microsoft Research's Redmond, Wash., campus. Wilson has worked on Microsoft's Surface computing, among other projects. But more recently he's developed a sensing technology system that would allow people to retrofit any display--e.g., a desktop or projector--so that they could use their hands, instead of a mouse, to interact with the computer.
The system uses a low-cost infrared camera and lasers to track how the user touches the screen in order to prompt a response from the software. The result could be a virtual chess game with a friend over a networked computer, or a better way to show off a PowerPoint presentation, Wilson said.
"It's a simple technique," Wilson said Thursday during a presentation of the prototype. Wilson was referring to the low-cost camera and laser setup, but he said the magic is really in the software he's developed.
On Thursday, Microsoft hosted its fourth research road show here at its Silicon Valley campus since the local arm opened in 2001. The event, which was open to press, academia, high-school students, and industry, was designed to demonstrate the company's research efforts and new technologies emerging from the labs. (The company has labs in Redmond, Mountain View, and, this summer, in Cambridge, Mass.)
LaserTouch is the newest prototype from Microsoft Research, but researchers also presented other previously unveiled projects from the labs. Those included Microsoft WorldWide Telescope, a virtual telescope for scientists and the public to peer into the heavens.
Researchers also previewed Boku, a programming language for kids on the Xbox 360 game controller. The technology lets kids guide, or "program," the behavior of a virtual robot through the use of visual cue cards in the game, rather than HTML (Hypertext Markup Language).
Even though LaserTouch was billed as an "inexpensive" multi-touch sensor technology, Wilson didn't say how much such a system would cost. He said that there aren't any plans to turn LaserTouch into a product as of now, partly because there are still problems with the technology. For example, it doesn't support multiple users that well. If two people were attempting to manipulate the display, for example, one person's hands might block the laser from "seeing" the other person's hands.
If turned into a product, however, it might save someone as much as $10,000 if they were in the market for a Microsoft Surface computer.
Still, the company is working on bringing down the cost of computer vision-sensing technologies to improve products like games, according to Wilson.
Rick Rashid, the founding member of Microsoft Research, gives a talk at the company's Silicon Valley campus.
(Credit: Stefanie Olsen/CNET News.com)MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--If you ask Rick Rashid why Microsoft is still around, he'll respond that it's because of research.
Rashid has no small stake in that answer. The founding member of Microsoft Research in 1991 and now its senior vice president, he said the unit has been responsible for everything from early code for Microsoft's entertainment products to its Xbox 360 game system.
"The reason you do basic research is for survival. You (provide) the agility to change when change is critical," Rashid told an audience at Microsoft Research's Silicon Valley lab here. "That's true for society and humanity more broadly, like if something really bad happens--war, famine, Google--you can respond."
On Thursday, Microsoft hosted its fourth research road show at its Silicon Valley campus since the local arm opened in 2001. The event, which was open to press, academia, high school students, and members of the industry, was designed to show off the company's research efforts and new technologies emerging from the labs. (The company has labs in Redmond, Wash.; Mountain View; and this summer, in Cambridge, Mass.)
To be sure, Microsoft has previewed much of the technology here at the half-day event before, including its WorldWide Telescope, a virtual telescope for peering into the heavens. But at least one project, including multitouch sensing technology LaserTouch, was newly demonstrated.
Rashid said that his group, which now has 800 Ph.D. researchers, is working on a wide range of projects, including ways to use computer science to solve world health problems like malaria and HIV.
Roy Levin, the director of Microsoft Research here, said his group focuses specifically on distributed computing. The lab, which has about 50 researchers, is working on improving the delivery of Web search results and the sponsored links that appear next to search results. Specifically, the lab is developing auction algorithms that will place the best-performing ads highest in the sponsored results, according to Levin.
Rashid said that overall, the mission of the research labs has been the same since their inception: to expand the state of the art in computer science.
"By that I don't mean do something for Microsoft. I mean move the state of the art in computer science." But, he added: "Ultimately, the goal of Microsoft Research is to make sure Microsoft is still here in 10 years."
A view of space from Microsoft's Worldwide Telescope
(Credit: Microsoft)
Microsoft is ready to boldly take Web surfers where none has gone before.
The software giant on Monday launched its WorldWide Telescope, a free Web-based program that allows Web surfers to explore galaxies, star systems, and distant planets. The program, which was developed by Microsoft's research arm, weds images from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and others.
"Users can see the X-ray view of the sky, zoom into bright radiation clouds, and then cross-fade into the visible light view and discover the cloud remnants of a supernova explosion from a thousand years ago," Roy Gould, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a statement. "I believe this new creation from Microsoft will have a profound impact on the way we view the universe."
The program is similar to Google Sky, a mode of Google Earth that offers views of the universe, including high-resolution photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope and background information on discoveries and constellations.
Microsoft said WorldWide Telescope will be made available for free as a tribute to Jim Gray, a Microsoft researcher who disappeared off the California coast while sailing last year.
"The WorldWide Telescope is a powerful tool for science and education that makes it possible for everyone to explore the universe," Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman, said in a statement. "Our hope is that it will inspire young people to explore astronomy and science, and help researchers in their quest to better understand the universe."
A view of space from Microsoft's Worldwide Telescope
(Credit: Microsoft)
Microsoft on Wednesday gave TED conference-goers--an audience typically filled with stars like Goldie Hawn or Forest Whitaker--a close-up of real celestial bodies with its new virtual telescope.
Microsoft demonstrated long-awaited software called WorldWide Telescope to an audience at the exclusive Technology Entertainment and Design conference in Monterey, Calif., a four-day confab that started Wednesday. It's unclear whether the demo of the astronomy technology made anyone in the audience cry like former Microsoft evangelist Robert Scoble, but the images (shown above) were certainly stellar.
WorldWide Telescope, similar to the sky feature in Google Earth but much more expansive, is a virtual map of space that features tens of millions of digital images from sources like the Hubble telescope and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a project championed by missing Microsoft researcher Jim Gray (to whom Microsoft dedicated the WorldWide Telescope on Wednesday). From the desktop, the technology lets people pan and zoom across the night sky, zeroing in on the Big Dipper, Mars, or the first galaxies to emerge after the Big Bang. It also lets people call up related data, stories, or context about what they're seeing from sources online.
Harvard University astrophysicist Roy Gould, who demonstrated the telescope with Microsoft principal researcher Curtis Wong, said that that the technology holds promise for research and for humanity.
"The WorldWide Telescope takes the best images from the greatest telescopes on Earth...and in space...and assembles them into a seamless, holistic view of the universe," Gould, of the Harvard Center for Astrophysics, said at the conference.
"This new resource will change the way we do astronomy...the way we teach astronomy....and, most importantly, I think it's going to change the way we see ourselves in the universe."
Microsoft also unveiled a promotional site for the telescope project Wednesday, but the free technology won't be live until sometime this spring. Without the tears, several academics talk up the telescope in video on the site. Here is a sampling of the awe-struck sentiment: "It's the universe that you yourself can voyage through." "It's a magic carpet." "It's an example of where science and science education is going." "My hope is to have it on every kid's desktop."
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