Microsoft adds twist to handhelds with force-sensing technology

Surely you're not content with just multi-touch and built-in accelerometers, right? Microsoft Research is expecting not, as it's already working towards integrating force-sensing technology that will enable gestures to twist on-screen imagery without crafting UMPCs out of flexible material. Essentially, the gurus behind the idea feel that implementing said tech would "turn an otherwise passive component that just holds the device together into an active input surface." In the future, it's likely that auditory cues would enable users to know when they've applied enough pressure to cause a change, and of course, they expect it to work hand-in-hand with existing human-computer interfaces. Yeah, who needs keypads these days, anyway? [Warning: PDF read link]

[Via BBC, thanks Joe]

[zfurie @ Apr 19th 2008 3:52PM]

What happens if I sit on it?

[Hashbrown Hunter @ Apr 19th 2008 4:37PM]

The universe will implode...on your ass.

[David @ Apr 20th 2008 12:08AM]

I hate it when replies get so long because someone has to redeem themselves for making dumb comments.

[hypereric @ Apr 19th 2008 3:53PM]

hehehehe ... so when you get a BSOD, and you're so frustrated that you want to twist and bend it in half, what does it display?

[Backlin @ Apr 19th 2008 5:49PM]

A picture of yo momma!

[hypereric @ Apr 19th 2008 6:26PM]

You guys and your ratings.... sigh. All you have to do is check my prior posts to see I'm no fanboi of "xyz" or hater of "xyz". I am a MSDN subscriber, love my xbox (but not an obsessive fanboy about it), partially own a company that develops C# .Net apps, gave the Vista OS Ultimate on the machine I am sitting here on a 85% personal satisfaction in a thread about a week ago (and stated its flaws) and have stated over and over I could care less if you choose Mac over Windows or Linux. It's all personal preference to me. Like the Zune and iPod, or like the XBox and PS3. Whatever floats your boat, have at it.

Now I come here, and make a joke at MS's expense, and get low rated?

You guys are never pleased! Just for that, I'm going out tomorrow and buying an iPhone, an iTouch and a Mac, picking up a PS3, and then come here and bash Windows and XBox guys all the time :-p

Go ahead, low rank me. Make mine the lowest ranked comment in the history of Engadget. This is no reverse psychology ploy... for my rant wouldn't make sense without the lowest ranking.

BTW, since my 85% satisfaction level of Vista was stated a week or so ago, I have downgraded it some, and am thinking seriously about reverting to XP Pro again.

But have it. I am even going to start it with ranking this and my initial comment with a -1!

[John McPoop @ Apr 19th 2008 6:36PM]

Its the internet you need to quit taking getting voted down so personally ... It has no effect on you ... get over it ... its not a popularity contest ...

[mcatrage @ Apr 19th 2008 6:37PM]

We didn't rank you low because we thought you were a fanboy we ranked you low because your joke just wasn't funny.

[Quikboy @ Apr 19th 2008 6:39PM]

@hypereric: You're low rated because you're throwing an overused MS cliche, that just isn't funny and relevant anymore.

BSOD's come from poorly written drivers, incompatible DLL's, and just faulty hardware. So if you really have such a crappy computer, I hardly blame Windows for that. Many users are getting more mature, and BSOD jokes don't cut it anymore.

You're second comment also shows your immaturity. You don't have to prove anything. Go ahead and spend $4000 tomorrow, as a way to protest your low ranking. With your ending comments, you obviously need to grow up. People aren't ranking you because you're making fun of MS. It's because you're being an idiot.

[gad get @ Apr 19th 2008 6:54PM]

It's not "iTouch!" It's iPod Touch! Sheesh! How does a person who's apparently so serious about his gadget-ism not know that it's an iPod?!

[gad get @ Apr 19th 2008 6:57PM]

How exactly was hypereric's comment low rated, but the first reply somehow high rated? Now THAT was a lame, immature, and very old joke.

[hypereric @ Apr 19th 2008 6:59PM]

@John McPoop: I didn't take it personally, my reply was in jest.

@mcatrage: Fair enough. You win some, you lose some. I'll admit I lost on this attempt. It is stale.

@Quikboy: Yes, I know all about the majority of BSOD's coming from drivers. I've only been running MS products since MS-DOS days on a XT clone with the 33 mgh Turbo button and CGA card, and running servers on the 'Net since NT 3.51 and IIS 2.0. Again, I'll admit it, a bad joke. On the second comment, no offense, but you missed the ":-p".

But all in all: I failed. Twice, I'll admit.

[Nohone @ Apr 19th 2008 7:22PM]

@hypereric

I am so sorry that I marked you down, please accept my sincerest apologies if I hurt your fragile feelings. Aparently your thoughts are more important than mine, and anybody who dares disagree with you (even if it is a "joke") is clearly in the wrong.

I don't care if you are Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or even f-ing Santa Claus, if you say something worthless and stupid, you get marked down. Here is a company trying out new things, seeing what works and what doesn't, but rather than saying something constructive, you make a pathetic little "joke". There are many other comments here in the "how stupid" area even though they have never tried it (for the record, I have not either), and I marked them down also.

If you don't like getting marked down, say something worth me taking the time to read it. I may not agree, but if it is constructive then you will get my +. You are not entitled to a better ranking just because you think you deserve it.

As for the last 1/2 of your little diatribe, I know it was "joking" (at least I hope it was), but it does nothing to help you sound any less than a little child.

[Valgas @ Apr 19th 2008 7:48PM]

Combined with motion sensors and accelerometers, this technology can be a great outlet for anger, rage and sexual fantasies (example: choking a virtual chicken until it pukes). Imagine a 3D model of the most annoying/hated celebrity or political figure being strangled and shaken to death by your virtual hands.

[hypereric @ Apr 19th 2008 9:20PM]

Quikboy:

Note: this is no way associated with my initial post or reply, but an off-topic response to Quikboy's (possible) assertion that I had crappy hardware.

On the issue of crappy computer and not being Windows fault for the Vista issues (if that it was you meant)..... uh, hardly:

3.2 dual core, 4 gigs of RAM (forgot the Mhz, but it scored 5.5 on the Vista test out of the best rating of 5.9), nVidia Quadro with dual GPU's (256 megs apiece), Creative X-Fi Platinum, 4 gig Sandisk Cruzer USB thumbdrive being used for ReadyBoost, Vista Ultimate (32 bit), Tweak-UAC to turn off all three levels of UAC, two SATA II's in a hardware RAID 0 (which scored 5.9). And yes, EasyCleaner run on a regular basis to keep deleting all the apps that want to start up with my computer, so it is running quite lean, process count-wise. Defrag is performed nightly, including Disk-Cleanup with a custom Sageset.

So in a word, hardware-wise and software-wise, I know what the f*ck I am doing.

No crashes, except IE & EchoVNC locking up on me periodically, but no major OS crashes. My complaints with Vista are:

1) Drivers. Main one here is BT: I have a pair of Motorola HT820's that I used to be able to switch between headset and audio sink and control WMP with no problems. Now, none of that works. I am presently tethered to my machine with a wired headset. Toshiba BT stack, generic MS BT stack, it doesn't matter. It pairs, but with zero functionality. Ditto for alot, but not all, of the services on my cell phone, so I get to send photo's MMS to my email address. This does not count the box of peripheals and gizmos sitting next to my desk that I have yet to find drivers for.

2) No "snap" to programs loading. This simply should not be happening with a hardware based RAID 0 Sata 300 config, fast RAM, dual-core 3.2 and a lean amount of processes running. This was not the case when I had XP on it.

3) Network copying over of files is a joke. It's worse then a joke when you are porting a DOS app to .Net that runs on DBF's, and the DOS app has to keep 85 of those DBF's open on the server. I use TameDOS for sandboxing the DOS app's resources, and it runs fine when the DBF's are local. Off the network, forget about it. What's really bad is that I have Virtual PC 2007 installed with a copy of XP, and it does it (copying files) a hell of alot faster then Vista, even though it is just being emulated on Vista ...WTF?

4) On more then one occasion, I have had icons such as the recycling bin just simply not be there... the text was, the space was, but no icon. I have also started to experience "double" icons, where the secondary duplicate icon is half there below the main one. If this was video card related, we both know that it would not happen just to icons on the desktop.

5) The UAC. We use EchoVNC (a fork off VNC, but I suspect all VNC flavors would be the same, I know TightVNC has this problem). Anyway, I have at least a couple hundred client computers on my server running EchoServer. Out of that, I'd say 25% and steadily growing, are Vista OS's. You log in via VNC, and as soon as you need to do something that requires a UAC prompt, you click "OK", and the whole OS shifts the security setting, which terminates your VNC connection. Much fun having to reconnect and reconnect. In order to not get kicked off, you have to disable all three levels of UAC, not just the one accessible in the control panel. The other two hidden in the registry as well. Thankfully, Tweak-UAC makes short order of this problem... however, try explaining to a business owner or their "tech" guy (the proverbial "little tommy down the street") that they need to disable the UAC first. Great fun. Now, for shits and grins, make yourself a user on Windows 2003 Server. Leave yourself in the User group only. Log in via VNC. Run a program with "Run as Administrator". You'll notice you do not get kicked off, why? On 2003 Server, they sandbox the security context for that program alone... why couldn't they have done this on Vista?

6) And if you think VNC is alone in these problems with the UAC, you are quite mistaken. Development for Vista is a nightmare, and most of it is due to the UAC. I could post an endless list of problems the UAC causes in developing. But don't take my word for it, browse on over to a personal friend's site called eggheadcafe.com ... if your a Windows developer, you no doubt use that site quite often already and probably have it bookmarked.

Crappy hardware? No, not in the least. Everything I have installed that *runs*, runs great. But as "someone" at eggheadcafe.com pointed out, it is the "OS from Hell". Or as another developer friend put it a few weeks ago, "you're in the honeymoon phase". I laughed at him. I am no longer laughing.

[Saad Rabia @ Apr 19th 2008 9:59PM]

How do I reach dees keeds?

[hypereric @ Apr 19th 2008 10:11PM]

@Nohone:

Well, that was a rude post; therefore, the knives have to come out.

"I am so sorry that I marked you down"

I never asked for a markup, on the contrary, I even went so far as to state this was not a "reverse psychology ploy". Try 'reading comprehension' sometime.

"please accept my sincerest apologies if I hurt your fragile feelings."

Huh? As I said to John McPoop: "I didn't take it personally". BTW, your attempt at "Mind Reading" my "feelings" is a common logical fallacy, called, appropiately enough, "Mind Reading". Causes all sorts of problems, especially in relationships. Only now has my widdle feelings been affected, and that is due to your incoherent response. But trust me, it is not "hurt" I am feeling.

"Aparently your thoughts are more important than mine, and anybody who dares disagree with you (even if it is a "joke") is clearly in the wrong."

See above. Next:

"I don't care if you are Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or even f-ing Santa Claus, if you say something worthless and stupid, you get marked down. Here is a company trying out new things, seeing what works and what doesn't, but rather than saying something constructive, you make a pathetic little "joke". There are many other comments here in the "how stupid" area even though they have never tried it (for the record, I have not either), and I marked them down also. If you don't like getting marked down, say something worth me taking the time to read it. I may not agree, but if it is constructive then you will get my +. You are not entitled to a better ranking just because you think you deserve it."

Wow. Mind Reading once again AND a lack of reading comprehension. A "two-fer". Again you imply I wanted a better ranking!

"As for the last 1/2 of your little diatribe, I know it was "joking" (at least I hope it was), but it does nothing to help you sound any less than a little child."

Diatribe: bitter criticism: a bitter verbal or written attack on somebody or something.

Joke: funny story: a story, anecdote, or wordplay that is intended to amuse

Almost antynoms, I would say.

So which is it? Was it a diatribe to you, or was it joking to you? I guess you meant the first half was a diatribe, and the second half was a joke ...(?) Color me confused due to your conflicting statement. Please, take a course in writing coherently.

And while your at it, since your comment came a full 23 minutes after I already admitted the whole thing was lame ("Fair enough. You win some, you lose some. I'll admit I lost on this attempt. It is stale.
... Again, I'll admit it, a bad joke ... But all in all: I failed. Twice, I'll admit."), you might want to look inward. I mean, kicking a man when he is down and has admitted he is down is rather, well, uncivilized.

Thankfully, my widdle feelings were unaffected by this fiasco until you came along, and as I already said, your post didn't "hurt" my feelings. Perhaps it affected my faith in mankind, perhaps it affected my faith that there was still rationale left in the world, perhaps it just pissed me off with your incoherent rambling, but don't worry, it did not *hurt* my widdle feelings.

Next time... ahh forget it! You bore me. You're too easy to slice and dice.

[monkfishbandana @ Apr 20th 2008 6:23AM]

Jeez frickin' Louise! Are we done here, because scrolling down web pages so much hurts - especially when people have written essays on stuff that is so trivial that I'm guessing less than 10 people actually read them athrough.

[N30 G30 @ Apr 20th 2008 6:52AM]

eh? A reply that's longer than the post...

Maybe you should start your own blog.

[chrisaroz @ Apr 19th 2008 3:53PM]

And this would be useful how?

[Phoenix @ Apr 19th 2008 4:05PM]

Let's you twist to turn a page or close a program. I'd like this.

[gad get @ Apr 19th 2008 7:02PM]

Isn't it obvious? So you can crumple up web pages you hate!

[gad get @ Apr 19th 2008 7:03PM]

What does it look like it's being used for in that picture?

[DiscoCat5 @ Apr 19th 2008 11:54PM]

i agree, what is the point of this?

[CT A @ Apr 19th 2008 3:53PM]

It Broke. Fix it.
If you do, you can has Cheezburger.

[CT A @ Apr 19th 2008 3:56PM]

Plz?

[CT A @ Apr 19th 2008 4:18PM]

Thx.

[ByronGman @ Apr 19th 2008 5:10PM]

Feel teh wraths of teh internets biotch!!!!

[bob e @ Apr 19th 2008 3:55PM]

That looks like a Sammy Q1 being twisted. Microsoft is on to something here.

[gad get @ Apr 19th 2008 7:05PM]

I don't get it. Do you have something against the Q1, or am I totally reading this wrong?

[Sharakar @ Apr 19th 2008 3:56PM]

The first game made for this interface is gonna let u import photos of the people u don't like so u can choke'em as much as u want........now how do I get the pictures of those guys that keep saying " But does it play crysis/doom?"

[Saad Rabia @ Apr 19th 2008 4:00PM]

ftp://ftp.research.microsoft.com/pub/tr/TR-2008-57.pdf

[emailtabs @ Apr 19th 2008 4:11PM]

Cheers!.

[Bryan Thornsberry @ Apr 19th 2008 4:17PM]

Wow. The future is going to be so animated. Instead of getting anything done, we'll all just be flailing our arms and fingers at our handhelds and twisting our word documents and personal photos into fun shapes. youtube however, will still be full of terrible quality videos of skateboarding dogs. yessssss.

[robothouse @ Apr 19th 2008 7:12PM]

Excellent work, chap. I hereby award you 1 million internets. You should receive them in 7-10 business days.

[someguy7234 @ Apr 19th 2008 4:22PM]

Agh... I was surfing the internet all night and now my wrist is sore...

[Tim @ Apr 19th 2008 5:05PM]

i see what you did there...

[a ham sandwich @ Apr 19th 2008 4:35PM]

i actually think thats a really good *twist* on accelerometers.

im so sorry for that.

no, but seriously, expanding the use of accelerometers in devices like this could really be awesome. The turning thing that the iphones got could do so much more if the keep working with kind of mindset! come on developers! ms is on to something here!

[Sime @ Apr 19th 2008 4:36PM]

"Yeah, who needs keypads these days, anyway?"

the reason i DIDNT buy the iphone

[dale_nx26 @ Apr 19th 2008 4:44PM]

Microsoft is copying Apple by...INNOVATING.

I kid, I kid.

[roole @ Apr 19th 2008 6:23PM]

Pardon my density, what's the joke here?

[turban @ Apr 19th 2008 4:55PM]

I hate interactive things. apple's are looking like micrsoft and microsoft is looking like macs...weird.

[Jonathan @ Apr 20th 2008 12:33AM]

To me it always seems like MS is a little behind Apple in software, but Apple is behind in hardware

[gabe @ Apr 19th 2008 4:56PM]

kewl - what happens to the screen when its blended

[ssuk @ Apr 20th 2008 5:29AM]

-1 for "kewl"
Hypothetical -1 again for not being funny and trying to look cool.

[Blaktornado @ Apr 19th 2008 5:04PM]

Once again, Microsoft makes something completely useless ;D

Just kidding. But judging on what I've seen, I don't see how it will help. By sticking a weird handle on the side, it means you can animate your documents being twisted?

Ok, maybe it's not the best example of the TECHNOLOGY but it's not proving to be any use.... yet.

[Ignacio @ Apr 19th 2008 5:09PM]

"In the future, it's likely that auditory cues would enable users to know when they've applied enough pressure"

Something like "CRRRRACK" ?

[El Taco @ Apr 19th 2008 5:18PM]

I don't think that sound will be coming from the speakers

[YoMomma @ Apr 19th 2008 5:17PM]

will it blend? ummm i tbink so.......

[YoMomma @ Apr 19th 2008 5:18PM]

stupid keyboarddddddd