Entries tagged with techfest 2009 - Channel 10

TechFest: Back of Device Touch Input

Laura Foy — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:27:00 GMT

This demo explores how to add pointing input capabilities to very small screen devices. On first sight, touch-screens seem to allow for particular compactness, because they integrate input and screen into the same physical space. The opposite is true, however, because the users fingers occlude contents and prevent precision. Microsoft Research Redmond has created a 2.4 inch prototype that allows a back-of-device interface. This clip explains how and why it works.

TechFest:Core Tools For Augmented Reality

Laura Foy — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:58:00 GMT

This demo will explain the development of a new kind of image feature that can be used within a variety of applications, ranging from image stitching to augmented reality. The features are already finding their way into Microsoft products and are being considered for many new applications. The demo shows a fun example application: A treasure hunt! By using the posters and other graphics on display during TechFest, the users then borrow a device that augments the workd wih virtual clues to find the hidden treasure.

TechFest: Image-Centric Advertising Platform

Laura Foy — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:37:00 GMT

Matthew Scott of Microsoft Research demonstrates new technology that can make advertising based on image content a reality. In existing online-advertisement platforms, the relevance between advertisers and users is decided largely by textual keyword matching. With this new technology, advertisers bid on images instead of keywords. For example, a toy seller could bid on the image of a related movie poster, while a restaurant could bid on the image of a cooking magazine cover. Users would then receive ads based on the content of images they upload or interact with if those images contain the images bid on by advertisers.

TechFest: Social Desktop

Laura Foy — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:40:00 GMT

Today, it's easy to share a webpage or a blog post, because items on the web have unique ID's: URL's. We don't have this on the desktop. Social Desktop adds URL's to the files and folders on your desktop, letting you share anything on your computer with anyone who can click a URL. Persons receiving links can either access via e-mail or comment, tag and search across all shared items via the Social Desktop webpage. Brought to you by Microsoft Research Redmond.

TechFest: GeoLife 2.0

Laura Foy — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:35:00 GMT

The increasing availability of GPS-enabled devices is changing the way people interact with the web and brings a large # of GPS trajectories representing peoples location histories. GeoLife 2.0 is a location based social-networking service on Virtual Earth that enables people to build connections with each other using their location histories. By mining the similarity between peoples locatoin histories, this system can help a user automatically discover potential friends in a community with similar interests. This system also enables travel experts who can help plot the ideal sight-seeing locations for you to visit in any part of the world. Brought to you by Microsoft Research Asia.

TechFest: Commute UX: The next level of in-car infotainment

Laura Foy — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:35:00 GMT

After deploying Blue&Me for Fiat and Sync for Ford, in-car dialog systems are morphing from cool gadgets that amaze people and sell more cars to integral parts of in-car infotainment. Commute UX raises the bar for the functionality, usability and reliability of these systems. Microsoft Researchs presents you with novel technologies that enable natural-language input, expose a multimodel user interface inculding speech, a GUI, touch and buttons; and use the state-of-the-art sound-capture and processing technologies for improved speech recognition and sound quality.

TechFest: Write in The Air

Laura Foy — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:20:00 GMT

TechFest is upon us so let the brilliant minds at MS Research (Global) share their latest inventions. "Write in the Air" is a proof-of-concept demo for recognizing characters written in the air. In order to input characters into devices such as the Xbox 360 and televisions equipped with a low-cost webcam but no keyboard or mouse, one can just face the camera and write the intended character in the air. The gestures captured by the camera will be fed into a robust handwriting recognizer. Take a look into the future!