Inside MultiTouch: Team, Demo, Lab Tour

Posted By: Charles | Oct 25th, 2007 @ 5:31 PM

MSR Cambridge is a hotbed of innovation. TabletPC, Machine Learning, Vision, F#, Generics, Software Transactional Memory to name only a few off the top of my head (yeah, I probably missed some bigger ones. It's OK. You get the point...).

You've heard of the latest brainchild: MultiTouch (you've seen the YouTube video, I'd imagine...). But, you haven't met all the characters involved with this intriguing invention (no, it's not really related to Microsoft Surface and other highly sophisticated multi-touch technologies) and you've certainly not heard about what they're currently working on or seen where they experiment and build this stuff.

Well, now you will. Meet the scientists behind MultiTouch; Shahram Izadi, Alex Butler, and Steve Hodges. Tune in and learn about the Who, What, How and Why behind MSR's innovative MultiTouch. It's pretty amazing and, surprisingly, not incredibly complicated technology. Find out all about it right here on Channel 9. Smiley

Enjoy!

Tags: Hardware, MS Research

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dentaku

I've always found Surface to be too big because it needs to be rear projected and has cameras. This is far more usable and I hope we see a real product emerge from this soon.

section31
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler! A.E.

Again this "Unable to load media" message, like posted in several other threads.

Arrrghhhh.. Perplexed

Oggelito
Fear No Darkness, Promised Child

I wonder if the customers are ready for this technique.

And please someone tell mr butler to cut his nails Expressionless

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

Yeah, hard to enjoy this video with the popup, and then the inability to actually play the video. Oh well, back to downloading...

hard working hassall

So how does the iPhone do all its multi-touch stuff then?

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

So, they mentioned resolution, but what other reasons are there not to use this for Surface computing? Looks like it'd cut down the form factor, which would immediately make it a lot more suitable to more environments. That last one they showed was already a small table, after all... If they stuck the Surface software on one of these devices, what wouldn't they be able to do that a normal Surface computer is able to do?

The tablet pc/IR sensing hybrid they mentioned sounds great, by the way. Manipulation using your fingers, and then writing using a stylus? That sounds ideal.

Great video, Charles. MSR Cambridge is fascinating.