Posts tagged as:

Microsoft

future touch screens have no lag

by stephanlange on March 27, 2012

Most touch panels and controllers today suffer from about a 100ms delay and while most people got used to it, I still find it really annoying.

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And so does Microsoft as they are putting money into the task of getting rid of that lag. Microsoft Research has figured out a way to get the delay down to 1 ms.

check out the video below to see the difference.

Pretty awesome and I can’t wait to see this technology going mainstream and into all kinds of touch devices.

@maniac13

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The Hunger Games and HTML5

by stephanlange on March 21, 2012

How do those 2 fit together you ask? Microsoft has teamed up with Lionsgate to show off the latest HTML5 techniques (movie-like effect: stream, lens flare and video projections) and to promote IE9.

Check it out here

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I had some issues getting onto the page, but I think it is because it is making the rounds in the internet and everybody is checking it out.

Nevertheless it is a pretty nifty and beautiful site and you have the ability to connect it to your facebook and your friends appear on billboards and screens.

The site also gives you some exclusive movie content and there are 2 easter eggs that reveal 2 never before seen clips.

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  • 1. In the Control Room you can type in "ivolunteer" on your keyboard after clicking on the map section
  • 2. In the Avenue of Tributes you can click on Katniss and then Peeta to reveal a clip from the training center

I can’t wait for the movie to come out as it looks great and it looks like HTML5 is being pushed to its boundaries on this site.

Check out the trailer if you haven’t seen it.

@maniac13

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Control Windows 8 by looking at it

by stephanlange on January 10, 2012

I am very excited about the forthcoming Windows 8 and I have been playing around with it since the Developer Preview was released.

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We have a big touchscreen in the office here so it is perfect for the Metro UI, but I have to say that the mouse interaction on a laptop without a touchscreen is very average.

Along came Tobii and at first you think it is just another gimmick, but everybody on the net who has actually tried it is blown away by it.

Tobii comes with an eye control device, a rectangular glass obilisk that is attached to the hinge of the laptop. It requires a personal calibration and off you go. It also controls all the swipe gestures available in Windows 8.

But enough said, check it out in the video.

and another video of it in action

can’t wait to try it out

@maniac13

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Microsoft Research shows off the life after touch

by stephanlange on February 27, 2011

By now we all experienced kinect one way or another and I personally really enjoy my kinect at home.

Kinect has been talked and hacked a lot and most people can see much more in it than just a game controller.

Looks like MS Research is thinking the same thing and in the video below they are showing off some cool things, like head tracking, glasses free 3D, gesture based interfaces and more.

As we all know from past experiences, these may or may not happen, but right now they are pretty cool.

thanks engadget

@maniac13

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Kinect, Xbox Live and Windows Phone 7 – the future

by stephanlange on February 15, 2011

this is a little video how Microsoft is envisioning Kincet working with Windows Phone 7.

Looks to me like my wife will have a lot of fun with that one :-)

@maniac13

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Amnesia Razorfish today announced the launch of Amnesia Connect – a software breakthrough, which allows instant and seamless sharing and transfer of any content such as photos, music or embedded apps between multiple handheld devices using a Microsoft Surface table using a single gesture.

Launched today, Amnesia Razorfish Connect can be viewed at: http://vimeo.com/18859503 and there is more information on the software at: www.amnesiarazorfish.com.au/


Amnesia Razorfish Connect has been developed entirely in-house at Amnesia Razorfish by the creative and emerging technology teams.

Following months of research and development, Amnesia Razorfish has replaced the typical ‘send and receive’ interface with a more natural ‘gesture-based’ interface. A smartphone owner can now move their content freely between two devices by simply dragging content off their phone onto a Microsoft Surface Table and back onto another device instantly.

Amnesia Razorfish Founder and Executive Creative Director Iain McDonald said: “The previous barriers which stood in the way of getting content on or off your phone have been completely removed with this software.

“In the past device integration like this has been mainly confined to Hollywood movies or smoke and mirror demos, so we set ourselves the challenge of making it real.

“It took a while to crack, but the result speaks for itself – all the buttons are gone and sharing content is now completely instinctive. In a world where smartphones are becoming omnipresent, this kind of software opens another world of ideas for brands.”
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The smartphone user can transfer new free or commercial content from the table by dragging it directly to their phone with a single swipe – then before full transfer takes place, a preview instantly visible as a live motion tracked ‘lens preview’ through the phone display – similar to an X-ray through to the table.

For example, in less than a few seconds a photo can be taken on one device and dragged effortlessly onto the Surface table and then directly onto another device running on Amnesia Connect software.

“The new software promises a range of new possibilities for the retail and hospitality industries in particular. In the near future we envisage a Smartphone user being to complete commercial transactions for both physical and digital content,” McDonald said.
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The Amnesia Connect software works with all Apple IOS devices and is being further developed to work seamlessly with Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry Smartphones.
Amnesia Razorfish Connect utilises a range of technologies including Wi-Fi, proximity detection, unique ID and phone accelerometer, depending on the type of phone and location.

For in-store transactions, NFC (Near-Field-Communications) has been proposed as one of several possibilities for payment transactions, although a pre-authenticated user account with credit card details could also be used.

Amnesia Connect has also been developed to work with the new Microsoft Surface 2.0 table, that was announced at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show.

Amnesia Razorfish Managing Director Michael Buckley said that Amnesia Connect is available immediately for the agency’s clients to utilise in projects and added existing clients that had seen the application were ‘very excited’.

Follow @amnesiafish on Twitter.
PS: Ask questions in the comments below – we will do our best to answer them!

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CES 2011 and here are my favourite things

by stephanlange on January 7, 2011

As usual everybody seems to be waiting to announce their new products at CES and this year hasn’t been any different.

And again we are overwhelmed with information from everyone and blinded by all the new shiny products. I will have to get a 2nd job to be able to afford all the new gadgets I want now.

So below is a list of my favourites from the CES this year that I found on different blogs around the internets (maybe one day I will be able to go there in person)

So here I will be showing you tablets, 3D stuff, Microsoft hardware and some other cool stuff I came across

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Hacking the Xbox Kinect

by stephanlange on November 29, 2010

I have to start this post with a whinge, I pre-ordered Xbox Kinect from JBHifi. When I pre-order something I do expect it to get to me on the day it gets released or at least the day after. We finally got our Kinect here at the office after it was already released for over a week. I could have just walked  down the street and picked on up.

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but that is not what I want to talk about here. It is all setup in our reception area and we already had a lot of people trying it out and loving it.

There are some very smart people out there and it only took 3 hours before the Kinect was hacked and an open source driver was created so you can use it on your PC, a little later on your Linux box and then on your Mac.

and what are people doing with it? They are creating some awesome things. Here is a small collection of the things I came across:

Best interactive Puppet

Have your own lightsaber

Capture yourself in 3D

same guy in 3D with a little awesome surprise at 0:53 – watch it it’s worth it

use Kinect to control Windows 7

there are heaps more videos after the break

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Microsoft’s answer to Google Street View

by stephanlange on August 3, 2010

The issue: traversing a busy urban street in a 360-degree photographic bubble can be disorienting, especially when searching for a specific address or business

The solution: Microsoft Street Slide, developed by MS Research. Zoom out of your panoramic bubble and the street is presented as a dynamic, multi-perspective "strip" giving you an instant visual summary of the surroundings.

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Supposedly Microsoft is already working on taking Street Slide mobile with an iPhone port, and probably a version for the upcoming Windows Phone 7 series.

Unfortunately, don’t expect this to be released anytime soon as the team has only processed about 2400 panoramas so far covering just 4 kilometers of streets.

Watch the video and you will be impressed.

@maniac13

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Sony vs Microsoft or Atrac vs Surface

by stephanlange on May 4, 2010

Swiss company Atracsys sold its tech knowhow to Sony and the company is today informing the world that its atracTable is ready for mass production and commercialization this June.

The system is a dual camera-based system that tracks and analyzes body movements in three dimensions, in real-time. Initially designed for use with a computer in a sterile operating theater, the interface not only notices subtle changes in the position of your body, arm, hand, or finger position, but it’s also determine rough age, sex, or facial expression of the user.

of course nobody knows a price yet, but they promise a high-contrast, Full HD screen, which is already better than the surface table from MS.

It will be able to communicate with your mobile devices or respond to motion input, which is picked up by a pair of Sony camcorders.

Here is another video of it in action:

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