Posts Tagged ‘microsoft surface’
Microsoft Building Shape-Shifting Touchscreen For True Tactile Touch Tech
The slick touchscreens of our iPhones and Droids are visually magnificent and the epitome of tech chic, but their slick, untextured glass screens don’t resonate with humans’ tactile nature (that’s why some people just can’t kick the hardware button keyboard). Good tactile touchscreens – screens that impart a feeling of touch or texture in sync with a displayed image – have thus far eluded device makers. A new Microsoft could change all that.
Previous attempts at tactile screens have focused largely on so-called vibrotactile displays that use small voltages at different frequencies to create the illusion of texture, but Microsoft wants to offer the real deal. The tech giant’s patent calls for pixel-sized plastic cells that can be physically manipulated to create the ridges and bumps that create a realistic touch sensation.
According to the patent filing, the technology is aimed at large displays like Microsoft’s table-sized Surface display rather than portable touchscreens – for the time being, anyhow. Surface works via a projector that beams images onto the tabletop screen from below. Users’ fingers touching the other side of the screen generate infrared reflections that are picked up by sensors below, creating touchscreen capability.
Microsoft’s patent envisions augmenting this with a shape-memory polymer that responds to light commands; when certain wavelengths of UV light hit pixels they respond accordingly, becoming harder, or softer, or protruding or retracting. Syncing this up with visual information could create the kinds of ridges and bumps that could five an image texture, or simulate the feeling of pressing real buttons rather than relying on the flat touchscreen tap iPhone users are familiar with.
Don’t put it on your Christmas list – this technology is nascent to say the very least, and Microsoft is mum on its development plans or if/when a tactile product might come to market. But the fact that a big player like Microsoft is pushing beyond vibrotactile displays is promising for the field in general. If researchers there can make it work, texting on touchscreens might never be the same.
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Use Microsoft Surface to Control a Swarm of Robots With Your Fingertips
Mark Micire, a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, proposes using Surface, Microsoft's interactive tabletop, to unite various types of data, robots and other smart technologies around a common goal. It seems so obvious and so simple, you have to wonder why this type of technology is not already widespread.
In earlier this week, Micire showed off a demo of his swarm-control interface, which you can watch below.
You can tap, touch and drag little icons to command individual robots or robot swarms. You can leave a trail of crumbs for them to follow, and you can draw paths for them in a way that looks quite like Flight Control, one of our favorite iPod/iPad games. To test his system, Micire steered a four-wheeled vehicle through a plywood maze.
The system can integrate a variety of data sets, like city maps, building blueprints and more. You can pan and zoom in on any map point, and you can even integrate video feeds from individual robots so you can see things from their perspective.
As Micire describes it, current disaster-response methods can’t automatically compile and combine information to search for patterns. A smart system would integrate data from all kinds of sources, including commanders, individuals and robots in the field, computer-generated risk models, and more.
Emergency responders might not have the time or opportunity to get in-depth training on new technologies, so a simple touchscreen control system like this would be more useful. At the very least, it seems like a much more intuitive way to control future robot armies.
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