Microsoft Research 'invents' Dance Dance Revolution... is this a joke? | The Coffeehouse

toast

You know, MSR is an organisation where some really fantastic work is being done. However, when I read about the DDR project and result, I had to check whether or not this was a joke, because the idea is so damn lame and the execution of it pretty damn cludgey.

Here is an example of some really, really cool input tech that is the kind of thing I would have expected from MSR:

http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/

(you'll need Quicktime to play the demo clip).

This is the kind of thing I could visualise being hooked up to a Windows Vista based appliance, with only the functional app exposed in the UI, inside my house for interacting with various appliances, my PC and the 'Net.

The screen could be some waffer thin OLED technology that would just hang on the wall.

Karim
Trapped in a world he never made!

For people who haven't seen the "Dance Dance Revolution" interface referred to in the thread title:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/microsoft_techfest

Gizmodo was underwhelmed:

http://us.gizmodo.com/gadgets/software/microsofts-dancecontrolled-interface-157705.php

Yeahhhh I'm not too sure about that either. A video would be helpful.

The advantage to the Microsoft device is that it's presumably pretty cheap -- how much hardware do you need to detect a footpress? -- and it sort of makes any display into a touchscreen (albeit with a 3 x 3 resolution...)

It certainly doesn't make me go "Oooh! Gotta have one of those!" but I thought that was kind of the point of the tech fest, to think outside the box a little...

That touchscreen input system you linked to was cool Cool

-- very Minority Report. Once you get multiple inputs, you can transform in multiple dimensions simultaneously -- pan & scale, or scale & rotate, etc.

I'm not sure how useful it would be on really large displays -- if the screen is large enough, and you're close enough to touch it, the edges could be out of your field of view.

Something like that could possibly be used in conjunction with this "Step User Interface" thing, so that moving your hands would do one thing, and moving your hands AND pressing your foot somewhere would do something else....

EDIT: found the StepUI page! all the links are currently broken, though, including link to the video:

http://research.microsoft.com/research/vibe/projects/stepUI.aspx/

main Tech Fest 2006 page:

http://research.microsoft.com/displayArticle.aspx?id=1410

press release on StepUI. Apparently the "dance pad" is off-the-shelf (i.e. from a game):

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/feb06/02-28MSRTechFest06PR.mspx

jonathanh
My mod color is red

One problem with TechFest is that journalists are taken to a carefully-selected subset of the booths - which almost always equates to the "photogenic" ones. Basically, they want something that looks whacky in a headline photo. So last year the "TechFest story" was the teddybear that turns to look at whoever's talking. This year it's this DDR-like interface. Neither are exactly earth-shattering ideas, but they sure make good copy (and more importantly, easy-to-write copy).

Trying to teach journalists enough computer science to understand the implications of the other 99% of the booths would be a thankless task Smiley I showed my research stuff at the first two TechFests - I hate to think how we'd have explained what we did to a journalist back then.

PerfectPhase
"This is not war, this is pest control!" - Dalek to Cyberman

toast wrote:

Here is an example of some really, really cool input tech that is the kind of thing I would have expected from MSR:

http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/

Nice demo.

You mean systems like this

http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=14162

http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=19174

http://www.blogtelevision.net/p/Videos-Read-Entry___1,4,,14063.html

Check page 8 of this for the same type of multipoint map rotation demo shown in the original link for rotating and zooming using the above PlayAnywhere system.

And then from sony http://www.csl.sony.co.jp/person/rekimoto/smartskin/ There is a good vid at the bottom of this page

Also an older version from MERL http://www.merl.com/projects/DiamondTouch/ back in 2001 but that requires the user to somehow be coupled to a receiver, normally by sitting in a chair that is linked to the table.

Intreastingly the latter two links predate Minority Report, you can kind of see where a lot of the gestures used in the film came from.

Karim
Trapped in a world he never made!

jonathanh wrote:
One problem with TechFest is that journalists are taken to a carefully-selected subset of the booths - which almost always equates to the "photogenic" ones. Basically, they want something that looks whacky in a headline photo. So last year the "TechFest story" was the teddybear that turns to look at whoever's talking. This year it's this DDR-like interface. Neither are exactly earth-shattering ideas, but they sure make good copy (and more importantly, easy-to-write copy).

So Microsoft Infinite Compressibility Algorithm ("this could change everything, see attached equations") doesn't make the news, but Microsoft Virtual Frog-in-a-Blender™ does... Great... losing what little respect I had for journalism... Tongue Out