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Microsoft is getting pretty good at digitizing reality
Microsoft Research always has the best toys, and is especially strong in augmented reality (AR) with projects like Illumiroom and its insane Hololens Minecraft game. Redmond's think tank has just revealed another impressive demo called "SemanticPaint" that lets you scan objects in 3D using a Kinect. While that's not new, Microsoft's latest magic trick is to separate and define individual objects in the scene. That might one day allow us to create a more accurate visualization of the world, a boon for things like robots and self-driving cars.
Microsoft wants to make you funnier in online chats
Do you constantly struggle to make jokes? Are you one of the millions of folks who wishes they could be spontaneously funny when communicating via the internet? Microsoft Research has some news (PDF) for you. The company's developed a web-based chat system dubbed "Cahoots" that analyzes text in your messages and suggests memes and reaction GIFs based on context and perceived emotion of the sender. It can even auto-generate memes on the fly using existing templates (think QuickMeme). Images were culled from I Can Haz Cheeseburger, Bing and ReactionGIFs.com and at the end of the study, some 738 of Amazon's Mechanical Turks found Cahoots pretty useful. No word's been given about the system actually reaching the public, so in the meantime you might want to start marathoning comedy specials on Netflix to bone up on your timing. [Image credit: See-ming Lee æææ SML/Flickr]
Microsoft technology gives Seattle 5,000 times faster public WiFi
Techie culture-vultures aren't likely to encounter Vine upload fails anymore at Seattle's home to arts, culture and the Space Needle thanks to Microsoft. The city's biggest patron has installed a new WiFi service at the Seattle Center that uses new technology to blow away the previous system's speed and capacity. The installation is a pilot program for Microsoft Research's white space tech that harnesses long-range, wall-penetrating TV signals. Along with quadruple the access points, the tech gives the Seattle Center public WiFi speeds up to 5,000 times faster, letting you Skype, Vine and Meerkat to your heart's content.
Microsoft's imaging tech is (sometimes) better than you at spotting objects
Many computer vision projects struggle to mimic what people can achieve, but Microsoft Research thinks that its technology might have already trumped humanity... to a degree, that is. The company has published results showing that its neural network technology made fewer mistakes recognizing objects than humans in an ImageNet challenge, slipping up on 4.94 percent of pictures versus 5.1 percent for humans. One of the keys was a "parametric rectified linear unit" function (try saying that three times fast) that improves accuracy without any real hit to processing performance.
Microsoft's Xim app now lets you share smartphone photos on bigger screens
Microsoft Research's Xim app for sharing photos can now beam slideshows on screens bigger than phones and tablets through streaming devices. Just log into the wireless network all your other devices are connected to and it will automatically detect any connected Chromecast, Apple TV, Xbox One or Amazon Fire TV that you can use to broadcast images to your television screen. Even better, if a friend initiates a session and you're paired with one of those streaming devices, he can control the images shown on your display.
Microsoft's Android Wear keyboard has you drawing every letter
Microsoft's support for Android Wear smartwatches isn't limited to a handy OneNote app. The company's research wing has slipped out Analog Keyboard, a prototype input app that has you drawing individual characters on your wristwear instead of trying to hit tiny keys. It's not the fastest solution (and triggers a few flashbacks to old-school PDAs), but it's very straightforward -- you get a relatively big drawing area, and there's a smart auto-correct system that you turn off just by pausing for a while between letters.
Kinect for Windows can track individual finger movements
Microsoft's new Kinect sensor is a lot of things, but absurdly accurate isn't one of them. To that end, Redmond' Research division is showing off some recent advancements its made with Handpose -- a way to fully track finger movement with its do-all gizmo in a variety of conditions. The video we've embedded below shows off the $150 PC peripheral analyzing and capturing intricate finger and hand movements seemingly pretty easily both from close-range and further back. Changes in lighting don't affect the fidelity either, as the tracking is all performed by the Kinect's depth sensor, not its camera. As Kotaku notes, however, this looks very much like something that'll be used for applications outside of gaming, rather than as a boost for your Dance Central skills. We'd like to imagine that its extra accuracy would probably come in handy in the operating room.
Microsoft Research packs stylus with sensors for grip-based tools
Believe it or not, there has been limited research into the way we hold a pen for different writing tasks. A team at Microsoft Research has taken aim at those fine motor skills with a prototype stylus and tablet combo. The duo packs in inertial sensors to track the position of each while in use. A multi-touch grip sensor wraps the outside of the stylus that not only monitors how its held, but can also initiate tasks with a mere finger tap. Sure, button controls have long been built into styli, however this effort investigates the grip as a means of swapping between tasks. During the test, holding the pen-like peripheral a certain way accesses a specific tool set or keeps a resting palm from prohibiting movement with the other hand. On the tablet, the sensors can tell when the slate is being passed off to another user -- swapping to that person's fine-tuned presets automatically. Of course, all of this is still in the research phase, but enhanced touch recognition for stylus-driven devices like the Surface Pro 3 would certainly be a welcome boost.
Microsoft's RoomAlive turns your den into a video game level
Remember IllumiRoom? It's the Microsoft Research project that pairs an Xbox Kinect with a projector to extend your TV onto a wall, resulting in an immersive (and hallucinogenic) experience. Redmond has just revealed that IllumiRoom 2.0 is now called RoomAlive and is a huge leap over what it was last year. The new system projects content throughout a room that you can interact with (or shoot), as shown in the insane video below. Instead of a single Kinect and projector, it uses multiple "procams" consisting of off-the-shelf projectors, Kinects and a control device. Microsoft claims that it's completely auto-calibrating and self-locating, enabling it to calculate the entire 3D geometry of your room in minutes.
Windows Phone's answer to Snapchat has you 'winding up' your friends
There's no official Snapchat app for Windows Phone right now, but don't worry -- Microsoft is offering an equivalent that might do in a pinch. The new WindUp app covers very similar ground, letting you send media and messages that disappear after a set amount of time; you're supposed to "wind up" your friends by giving them just a brief glimpse of what you're sharing. No, we don't get the (fairly contrived) explanation any more than you do, but Microsoft isn't worried about marketing here. While this technically competes with services like Snapchat, it's really a research experiment meant to explore how people "create, share and converse," not to topple someone else's messaging empire. Don't expect WindUp to evolve or reach other platforms, then. Even so, it may be worth checking out if you'd like a ephemeral chat app focused solely on Windows Phone fans.
Microsoft's image-recognition AI is a stickler for the details
Computer scientists have been modeling networks after the human brain and teaching machines to think independently for years, completing tasks like document reading and speech cues. Image recognition is another useful chore for the neural networks, and Microsoft Research has just offered a peek at its recent dive into the matter. Project Adam is one of those deep-learning systems that's been taught to complete image-recognition tasks 50 times faster and twice as accurate as its predecessors. So, what does that mean? Well, instead of just determining the breed in a canine snapshot, the tech can also distinguish between American and English Cocker Spaniels. The team is looking into tacking on speech and text recognition as well, so your next virtual assistant may not only wrangle your schedule and commute, but also could constantly learn from the world that you live in.
Microsoft's motion-sensing keyboard lets you skip the touchscreen
As convenient as touchscreens and air gesture controls can be on a PC, it's not very comfortable to keep raising your hands just to handle basic tasks. You might not have to subject your arms to that kind of strain if Microsoft's experimental Type-Hover-Swipe keyboard ever reaches shelves, though. The peripheral hides a grid of infrared motion sensors between the keys, letting you perform hand gestures in a more natural position. While the technology is very low-resolution (there's just 64 pixels of data), it's both fast and precise enough to recognize more advanced commands. Among other tricks, you can mimic a steering wheel with your hands when playing a racing game.
Microsoft tests Live Tiles you can use without leaving the Start screen
Even Microsoft knows that Windows Live Tiles have so much potential to be a lot better, especially on touchscreen devices. In fact, a group of the company's researchers in Asia have apparently been working on making Live Tiles interactive. As you can see in the videos after the break, the experimental tiles expand when touched, showing you its contents right on the Start screen instead of launching the app. For instance, touching the mail app automatically shows a list of your emails in an expanded view, which looks very similar to an Android widget.
Microsoft teaches robots how to deal with groups and draw from memory
Us humans are good at predicting how people will behave, particularly in groups, but artificial intelligence routines still have trouble dealing with much more than controlled, one-on-one discussions. They'll be far more flexible if Microsoft's Situated Interaction project pays off, though. The research initiative has produced sensor-equipped robots that can not only recognize multiple people, but infer their objectives and roles. Office assistants can tell who's speaking and respond in kind, while a lobby robot can call the elevator if it sees a crowd headed in that direction.
Microsoft's Blink Windows Phone app gets a redesign, lots of new features
The Blink app for Windows Phone 8 is already pretty good, and it's about to get even better. Microsoft Research has released a new version of its photography application, complete with a fresh look and a swath of new features. Aside from letting you create GIFs, Blink now makes it easier for you to lock on your subject, take more stable shots and quickly get to gallery view, where you can see the stuff you've captured. You can also see images show up on your Start screen, thanks to added Live Tile support. Plus, there's a new tutorial mode -- perfect for those who have yet to take the app for a spin. Either way, the revamped Blink is available now from the Windows Phone Store.
Microsoft Research turns Kinect into canny sign language reader (video)
Though early Kinect patents showed its potential for sign language translation, Microsoft quashed any notion early on that this would become a proper feature. However, that hasn't stopped Redmond from continuing development of the idea. Microsoft Research Asia recently showed off software that allows the Kinect to read almost every American Sign Language gesture via hand tracking, even at conversational speeds. In addition to converting signs to text or speech, the software can also let a hearing person input text and "sign" it using an on-screen avatar. All of this is still confined to a lab so far, but the researchers hope that one day it'll open up new lines of communication between the hearing and deaf -- a patent development we could actually get behind. See its alacrity in the video after the break.
Microsoft updates Blink for Windows Phone 8 with GIF-like clip creation (video)
If Vine still leaves you pining for the choppiness of GIFs, Microsoft's got you covered -- on Windows Phone 8, at least. Redmond's Blink app, which helps smartphone photographers capture bursts of images, has hit version 2.0 and scored the ability to create short animated clips, aptly dubbed Blinks. In addition to the bite-sized videos, the latest update bakes in camera settings in capture mode, sharing to social networks and web galleries for shared creations. Microsoft Research also released Blink Cliplets for Windows 8 and RT, which allows users to layer static and dynamic elements atop footage. Hit the break to check out the new release of Blink in action, or jab the first source link for the download.
Microsoft says Illumiroom isn't yet ready for next Xbox, but will get public demo in July (video)
Since we saw Illumiroom at CES in January, the research has come quite a ways. But while it's still a spectacular technology display, don't look for it to pop up in any Xbox announcements in the near future. In fact, Microsoft Research's Hrvoje Benko and Brett Jones told us during a interview that while they have Illumiroom technology working well at this point, they're not likely to even demo it to the public until July at Siggraph. That's not to say that you're not going to want it. The researchers showed in detail exactly how it works: they use a Kinect to scan your living room, then project a series of "illusions" onto it with a wide-screen projector, getting the colors just right using a technique called "radiometric compensation." The projector and Kinect can be mounted in any convenient spot in the room, like the ceiling or a table. While the technology can be used with other forms of entertainment, researchers concentrated on gaming, since they're able to generate source material that works well with the effects. Some of those illusions include "focus," which displays special effects around the images, "segmented focus," to extend the display to portions of the living space (requiring extra material to be generated), and "appearance," changing the look of your room by giving it a cartoon appearance, for instance. Despite the still-early phase of the research, it's definitely whetting our appetite for more -- and you can see an interview with the researchers, along with a full raw video of the presentation after the break.
Microsoft Research brings mid-air multitouch to Kinect (video)
Shortly after the Kinect SDK first launched, it spawned a number of inspired efforts from researchers to make it do more than just track your body. Microsoft Research finally seems to be catching up to its own tech, as it just flaunted a recent project that allows fine-tuned gesture control, thanks to a newly developed talent for the motion sensing device to read whether your hand is open or closed. That let the team simulate multitouch-like capability on a PC as they air-painted basic images and manipulated Bing maps by varying their hand states. The hardware used doesn't appear to be stock, so whether such new capability entails a rumored new version of the Kinect that may or may not appear on a (rumored) future Xbox, we'll leave for you to decide.
Microsoft ViralSearch project visualizes content as it spreads across Twitter
It's not a new component of Bing (not yet, anyway), but Microsoft has taken the wraps off a new small-scale search project at its TechFest event this week -- one with a particular focus on so-called viral content. Appropriately dubbed ViralSearch, the effort from Microsoft Research currently uses Twitter as a source for all its data, and offers a variety of ways to track and visualize how a story, photo or video spreads from one outlet or individual to hundreds or thousands of others. That includes a profile view of sorts, which lets you see how influential a particular person was in spreading an item, and how prolific they are in general. Unfortunately, it is still just a research project so you can't try it out yourself just yet, and there's no word on any plans for it to become a commercial product. In the meantime, you can get a quick overview of how it works in the video after the break.
