Microsoft Secret Stuff
I’m a fan of anticipating the future, and creating the future. Even speculation helps dream up what’s possible, and be ready for anything, when it happens. And if you balance that with key trends, you can really stay on top of things.
After all, what’s The Art of the Long View teach us? While we can’t predict the future, we can better prepare for it by playing out the “what if” scenarios and possibilities.
With that in mind, I did a search on Microsoft secret stuff, and found some interesting things. After all, Microsoft spends more on R&D than Google and Apple combined.
Here are some of the more interesting articles I found:
- Meet Microsoft, the world’s best kept R&D secret
- XBox Surface: Microsoft's 7-inch gaming tablet
- Microsoft's 'Secret' Projects That Will Completely Rock Your World
- Windows XP Retiring In Time For Microsoft Glasses
- Xbox leak reveals Kinect2, augmented reality glasses
Here are my key take aways …
- Holodeck - transform your family space into a something like Star Trek’s famous holodeck.
- Kinect Glasses (Fortaleza) - wearable peripherals and augmented reality.
- Xbox Surface – a 7-inch Xbox tablet.
Kinect Stuff
- Kinect Fusion - create interactive 3D models.
- KinectTrack - a new six degree-of-freedom (6-DoF) tracker which allows real-time and low-cost pose estimation using only commodity hardware.
- SuperKid - Use Kinect to make movies: watch yourself against a virtual background, and interact with virtual props.
Touch and Touch Screens
- LightSpace - create interactive displays on everyday objects.
- OmniTouch - displays graphical images onto virtually any surface and transform the projection into an interactive, multi-touch-enabled input.
- Sidesight - expand a mobile device's multi-touch capabilities beyond the size of its screen.
- SkinPut - beam interactive displays onto your hand and arm
- Thinsight - a hardware and software product that allows ordinary LCD screens to become fully functional multi-point touchscreens.
More …
- Digits - translate a user’s hand movements directly into a virtual space.
- Foveated Rendering - accelerate graphics computation by a factor of 5-6 on a desktop HD display, by exploiting the fallout of acuity in the visual periphery.
What neat stuff do you see Microsoft working on?