Out of Steve Bathiche and Andy Wilson's work on Surface Computing comes an elegant 30-inch diagonal display table that reacts to touch -- and will hit the market in Winter 2007. It'll be on show at Siggraph in August. Check out the demo (done in Flash (!) ). Please, can I have one in my living...

Big - We're talking GIGApixels of data (3.7 gigpixels in this image thumbnailed here) Wide - Wide enough - like 150 degrees - that presenting the "right" projection of part of the image is non-trivial Deep - So deep that high dynamic range comes into play - over 100x variation - as you zoom and pan around...

Microsoft Research TechFest provides a forum for Microsoft researchers to connect with the broader group of Microsoft employees and product managers. The good news is that the Channel 9 video brigade was out in full effect at TechFest 2007 , which took place a few weeks ago. The event featured over...

"People want technologies that support and deepen the very differences that make one place distinct from another." So asserts Richard Harper, the second Microsoft Research speaker coming to present here in Ireland. Second Life illustrates the value of virtual real estate , and game developers have...

I'm watching the Bill Gates CES keynote today. For me, the coolest announcement is the Microsoft Home Server . Automated backup of all your home PC data, connectivity to other PCs, Zune, XBox, and also remote connectivity without complexity. I created a similar home server setup myself using a...

The first Photosynth technology preview has hit the web! Today, you can visit the Photosynth site to explore four different collections of photos in 3D space. Back in August, the Photosynth team announced their work at the SIGGRAPH 2006 conference, along with a lot of amazing Microsoft research into...

One of the image processing technologies that Andrew Blake (of Microsoft Research) showed us during his Computer Science and Illusion presentation was image quilting , where bits of a texture are stitched together into a large, cohesive image. A cool application of image quilting is texture transfer...

Here is a link to the slides from Andrew Blake's fascinating presentation last night on Computer Science and Illusion. ( 44MB, zipped PPT ) His presentation took us on a journey through four topics from computer vision: perspective drawing, texture, shading, and his current interest, stereo projection...

If you're in the Dublin area, don't forget that Andrew Blake from Microsoft Research will be presenting on Wednesday night at Trinity College Dublin on the subject of Computer Science and Illusion . The talk will explore and demonstrate connections between visual perception, geometry, and computer processing...

A highly respected Senior Researcher from Microsoft Research in Cambridge is visiting Dublin on Wednesday September 6th to give an evening's presentation titled Computer Science and Illusion: A Computational View of the Interpretation and Manipulation of Images . Professor Andrew Blake has made major...

While I was away in Canada last week, Siggraph 2006 was taking place down in Boston. Many of the papers from that enormously engaging conference on graphics and interactive techniques are now available on the web . During the conference, I enjoyed reading Ben Constable (of the Microsoft Max team)...

[Another in my continuing series on the innovative Microsoft Research projects I had a chance to check out in Cambridge...] I had the good fortune of meeting Don Syme at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, who introduced me to his brainchild, F# (which is pronouced "F Sharp," and that's Don on the left...

The videos and slides from the Mix06 conference, which was held in Vegas last March, are now online at http://sessions.mix06.com/ . Now I can go back and soak up all the sessions I wasn't able to attend while I was there! For those of you who saw Scott Guthrie 's presentations at the INDC about...

I had the good fortune of spending Thursday and Friday last week at Microsoft Research in Cambridge. I had been invited to visit by Ralf Herbrich and Thore Graepel, the leaders of MSRC's newly-formed Applied Games Group . Before starting the Applied Games Group, Ralf and Thore were members of the...