13/12/2008, 04:41 AM
Microsoft Research
So on Friday, I had a computing trip to Microsoft research in Cambridge. It was basically lots of talks on different things, for example, 'The Secret life of a mobile phone' and 'The future of human computer interaction'. It started with us arriving early and waiting for an hour, waiting for all the other schools to show up. About 300 or so people turned up. Ken Wood's speech on 'the future of human computer interaction' was probably the best imo as he was talking about Microsoft surface, and how the concept was originally like a bowl. Like the sort of bowl that you have in your house to put your keys and change in. Looked pretty damn cool! But due to how it was made, cameras and projectors below, they needed a way to conceal these so they decided to stick it all in a table. Well anyway, there was a demo room with all the technology the people were talking about. Obviously the most appealing ones were the surface computers, but there were also other innovations, like 'sidesight', 'other brother' and a image blending software program called 'autocollage' (which they gave us a serial key for! :)).
Sidesight is touch control without the touch :sleepy:. It has infrared rays that are emitted and reflected. Anything that passes it, is detected. This allows you to control various things. It's in very early stages and was only used to rotate an image in the demos room.
Other Brother was a robot head, with a camera and various detectors. You would put it in a room and it would take various photos and videos during the day. Its aim was to capture experiences that you would never think of capturing on film. It had detectors for sound and motion, so if you walked past it and fell over, it would make sure it took a photo or a video xD.
Another demo was 'autocollage', this is a piece of software that finds the focal point, or the most interesting point in a photo/image and then blends it with 5,6,7,8 etc other pictures. It is basically using a layer mask to blend images, but much quicker and more effeciently.
Link: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/c...tocollage/
Then there was the cooler stuff. The surface computers and Secondlight (an advanced surface computer that allowed projecting and sensing above the actual surface O_O).
The family surface computer that microsoft put in a few people's homes is basically an image gallery/storage device. Images can be stored on the device and browsed through with multi-touch (which is similar to the iphone/itouch). It had two layers, one layer was where you could view and mess around with your photos, the other layer was called the basement. This contained archives of photos in boxes, just like you would at home (so they say). To get to this layer you just held your finger on the screen for 2-3 seconds. Once on the basement you could order you boxes and open them etc. You were able to bring these boxes up to what I shall now call the 'browsing layer' where you could open them and take the photos out one by one. Or, due to the realist physics you could overturn or chuck the box about, so all the photos/images fell out. Very clever.
SecondLight Video: mms://wm.microsoft.com/ms/research/proje...dlight.wmv
That video shows it all. Incredible stuff! Allowing you to pick up a ball on a 2d screen and drop it into a cup is simply amazing to me.
The day continued to be great, with tea/coffee and lunch being available. When the day came to a close everybody received a free microsoft research rucksack. It contains, a CS4FN magazine, a wooly hat, pen, pencil and various other things. Plus, it contained a 2gb memory stick, which I will be using! :)
Overall, I found the day very enjoyable, listening to professional and experienced people talking about various computing problems and innovations. The demos room was great and trying out the latest technology Microsoft had to offer was amazing. :D
![[Image: f_DiggITByNagm_908ca6d.png]](http://img37.picoodle.com/img/img37/3/12/13/f_DiggITByNagm_908ca6d.png)
source[intentioart]
So on Friday, I had a computing trip to Microsoft research in Cambridge. It was basically lots of talks on different things, for example, 'The Secret life of a mobile phone' and 'The future of human computer interaction'. It started with us arriving early and waiting for an hour, waiting for all the other schools to show up. About 300 or so people turned up. Ken Wood's speech on 'the future of human computer interaction' was probably the best imo as he was talking about Microsoft surface, and how the concept was originally like a bowl. Like the sort of bowl that you have in your house to put your keys and change in. Looked pretty damn cool! But due to how it was made, cameras and projectors below, they needed a way to conceal these so they decided to stick it all in a table. Well anyway, there was a demo room with all the technology the people were talking about. Obviously the most appealing ones were the surface computers, but there were also other innovations, like 'sidesight', 'other brother' and a image blending software program called 'autocollage' (which they gave us a serial key for! :)).
Spoiler for sidesight:
![[Image: SideSight%20How%20It%20Works.JPG]](http://www.gearlog.com/SideSight%20How%20It%20Works.JPG)
Sidesight is touch control without the touch :sleepy:. It has infrared rays that are emitted and reflected. Anything that passes it, is detected. This allows you to control various things. It's in very early stages and was only used to rotate an image in the demos room.
Other Brother was a robot head, with a camera and various detectors. You would put it in a room and it would take various photos and videos during the day. Its aim was to capture experiences that you would never think of capturing on film. It had detectors for sound and motion, so if you walked past it and fell over, it would make sure it took a photo or a video xD.
Another demo was 'autocollage', this is a piece of software that finds the focal point, or the most interesting point in a photo/image and then blends it with 5,6,7,8 etc other pictures. It is basically using a layer mask to blend images, but much quicker and more effeciently.
Spoiler for example of result:
![[Image: collage.jpg]](http://research.microsoft.com/autocollage/content/collages/03/collage.jpg)
Link: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/c...tocollage/
Then there was the cooler stuff. The surface computers and Secondlight (an advanced surface computer that allowed projecting and sensing above the actual surface O_O).
The family surface computer that microsoft put in a few people's homes is basically an image gallery/storage device. Images can be stored on the device and browsed through with multi-touch (which is similar to the iphone/itouch). It had two layers, one layer was where you could view and mess around with your photos, the other layer was called the basement. This contained archives of photos in boxes, just like you would at home (so they say). To get to this layer you just held your finger on the screen for 2-3 seconds. Once on the basement you could order you boxes and open them etc. You were able to bring these boxes up to what I shall now call the 'browsing layer' where you could open them and take the photos out one by one. Or, due to the realist physics you could overturn or chuck the box about, so all the photos/images fell out. Very clever.
SecondLight Video: mms://wm.microsoft.com/ms/research/proje...dlight.wmv
That video shows it all. Incredible stuff! Allowing you to pick up a ball on a 2d screen and drop it into a cup is simply amazing to me.
The day continued to be great, with tea/coffee and lunch being available. When the day came to a close everybody received a free microsoft research rucksack. It contains, a CS4FN magazine, a wooly hat, pen, pencil and various other things. Plus, it contained a 2gb memory stick, which I will be using! :)
Overall, I found the day very enjoyable, listening to professional and experienced people talking about various computing problems and innovations. The demos room was great and trying out the latest technology Microsoft had to offer was amazing. :D
source[intentioart]