Want to get your hands on an experimental research prototype from Microsoft Hardware?

It's that time of year again, and we are coming up to UIST 2010 - a research conference on new interface hardware and software technology. Once again, Microsoft Applied Sciences is sponsoring the student innovation contest. Last year, it was the pressure sensitive keyboard. This year is the: Adaptive Keyboard.


From the Applied Sciences page, "[The adaptive keyboard] is a research prototype developed by Microsoft Hardware to explore how combining display and input capabilities in a keyboard can allow users to be more productive. The keyboard incorporates a large, touch-sensitive display strip at the top. In addition, the display continues underneath the keys, allowing the legends to be modified in real time. This lets you do things like change the character set to a different language or display command icons."

If you are interested in participating, visit the UIST student contest page for rules and important dates. The entry deadline is August 17th!

Playing Nintendo with your eyes

Haha, now this is how you make a science project/research video! Great work guys. Next time I'm in the area, I'd be happy to buy you guys lunch. It looks ridiculous, but great at the same time. 150K views and counting. These Waterloo Labs guys really have something going with their "Engineer Awesome" mantra. My hats off to them. You can check out their other videos on their YouTube channel.

"Congrats"

I just wanted to say, "congrats". To everyone involved at Xbox, everyone at the game studios. For a really great showing at E3 last week. For all the blood, sweat, and tears that got us to this point. And for helping to bring to market the most sophisticated consumer device ever created.

"Congrats"

Laptops + Pico projectors = Bonfire

Some colleagues of mine at Intel Research/University of Washington recently got permission to post a video of thier research project from UIST 2009. It's a really nice idea that I wish I had done myself and, in my opinon, is one of the better applications of cheap pico projectors that I've seen.

Using pico-projectors and cameras mounted on a laptop, you can take advantage of nearby table space around the laptop to effectively expand your workspace at will. The video is a little stiff but, like many good ideas, you get the jist of it pretty quick.

Guitar Hero without a guitar

This year, I'm helping the User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) conference put their proceedings videos online so that more people can access them. So far, I've gotten most of the videos from this year uploaded to the conference YouTube account. If you've closely followed the tech media coverage, you might recognize projects like the pressure sensitive keyboard and Mouse 2.0.

However, one of my favorite projects this year was a muscle sensing system that (among other things) allows you to play Guitar Hero without a guitar. It directly senses the electrical signals in your arms and maps those to the appropriate button presses. This was done by Scott Saponas, a Phd student at the University of Washington exploring a variety of biometric sensing techniques for input.



I also really like this project which combines a large touch table with other physical input devices such as multiple mice and keyboards all working together nicely. This prototype was done by Bjoern Hartman who has recently joined UC Berkeley's faculty.



I like systems that combine many modes of input so that you can dynamically choose the right device for the job and can gracefully scale to multiple people simultaneously. We are pretty far past having a 1:1 ratio between between people and computers. Yet, most systems today are still designed with 1 device and 1 user in mind.

Pressure Sensitive Keyboard

Some of my colleagues in the Applied Sciences group in Microsoft Hardware have recently gotten some media exposure for one of their recent projects: the pressure sensitive keyboard



Congrats! It's a very nice prototype, and I look forward to seeing what the students at UIST cook up in the innovation contest.

If you aren't familiar with UIST (User Interface Software and Technology), it is a conference dedicated to new interface research. It is one of my favorite conferences to attend. It's where I demonstrated my past work like Automatic Projector Calibration, Foldable Interactive Displays, where Chris Harrison (recently known for Physically Changing Displays) showed off Scratch Input, Andy Wilson showed early pre-Surface touch tables, Hrvoje Benko showed Spherical Surface, MSR-Cambridge presented Second Light, and where Jeff Han first demonstrated FTIR. ...and that's just a small sample from the last 2-3 years.

So if you are interested in new interface technology (or you are part of the tech media) I would encourage you to attend UIST in October this year. You'll get to see what the latest interface researchers are doing all over the world and get to talk to the people behind the ones you have read about.

Rhonda - 3D drawing

It's always good to give people reminders of what is possible when you don't stick with just a mouse and keyboard. This is a very nice piece of interface work for 3D drawing. The system is called Rhonda. The drawing is a bit on the abstract art side, but it's easy to see the level of control he has.



The great thing about 3d drawing is that the current tools are awful, so new ways of doing it are always interesting. Unfortunately, the bad thing about 3d drawing is that there are a relatively small number of people on the planet that really want to do it. So, it's unlikely these interfaces become widespread outside the domain.