Random Accesses

It's a good time to be communicating with computers. No longer are we constrained by the mouse and keyboard--touch screens and gesture-based controllers are becoming increasingly common.

Now, researchers at Microsoft, the University of Washington in Seattle, and the University of Toronto in Canada have come up with another way to interact with computers: a muscle-controlled interface that allows for hands-free, gestural interaction.

A band of electrodes attach to a person's forearm and read electrical activity from different arm muscles. These signals are then correlated to specific hand gestures, such as touching a finger and thumb together, or gripping an object tighter than normal. The researchers envision using the technology to change songs in an MP3 player while running or to play a game like Guitar Hero without the usual plastic controller.

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/23813/?a=f

According to Microsoft this week, "voice is the new touch." Never mind that we've been hearing the "voice recognition will change the world" mantra for more than a decade now; this time, it's the real deal! And the company might be right, thanks in part to the peculiar power of the cloud.

With the launch of Windows 7, Microsoft is again talking up its voice recognition efforts, which extend from operating systems to cars to mobile phones. The company has certainly been hammering away at the technology for quite some time; limited versions have been included in Office for years, and a full speech recognition package was built into Vista. Bill Gates has also been predicting the rise of voice communication for a decade.

But Microsoft does have something important: a crack speech-recognition team with access to cloud-based voice recognition servers. It acquired TellMe in 2007, and the Speech at Microsoft group now controls the TellMe voice platform, which manages more than six million calls per month.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/10/voice-recognition-gets-cloudy-will-soon-rival-humans.ars

New research from the University of Southampton has demonstrated that it is possible for communication from person to person through the power of thought alone.

Looking to take brain-computer interfaces (BCI) to the next level, Dr. Christopher James from the University’s Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, set out to show that brain-to-brain (B2B) communication is possible. Utilizing electrodes, computers, and the internet, he claims that his experiment is a “proof of concept” that shows, for the first time, true brain to brain interfacing.

Dr James noted: “Whilst BCI is no longer a new thing and person to person communication via the nervous system was shown previously in work by Professor Kevin Warwick from the University of Reading, here we show, for the first time, true brain to brain interfacing.

Source: http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=1819

There will be some new and nasty competition this year here at the 16th Robo-One robotic gladiatorial tournament: a warrior robot steered by its controller's neural signals.

The bipedal 'bot, which will see its first bouts when the combat tournament opens Saturday, is operated by Taku Ichikawa, a fourth year student at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo. He controls the robot through a set of electrodes applied to his head that measure his neural activity, making it possible to control the 50-centimeter tall, 2 kilogram robot just by thinking.

"As this is the first neural signal-controlled combat robot, I hope a lot of people will get to know about it," said an excited Ichikawa.

The mechanical gladiator is capable of three types of movement: walking forward, rotating right, and using its single arm for stabbing attacks. The 12 electrodes attached to Ichikawa's head relay his commands via a wireless connection.

Source: http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2009/09/25/20090925p2a00m0na015000c.html

They say the economy is down in Vegas, but the Hard Rock Cafe opened this weekend with a nod to the future of technology in retail environments. Along with some interactive in-booth experiences, some Surface tables, the centerpiece of the technology is our latest 18' x 4' multi-user, multi-touch wall.

The display is possibly the world’s highest resolution interactive display available to the public. We have been working on this for a while, and while others have tried similar sizes/resolutions, this is the real deal.

The basics are 3 HD projectors behind an 18 foot multi-touch wall. The difference here is that the whole thing is one 6000 (almost, it is actually 3x1920 projectors, so it is a bit less)pixel plate, with over 100 4K-6K images/videos being displayed at one time. No "deep zoom" needed, everything is real-time. Also unique is the way we scale across GPUs seamlessly.

The display intelligently allocates room for up to 6 users, but if only one or two are using it, they each get half. if a third steps in, the workspace is dynamically allocated.

Source: http://interactive-vision.blogspot.com/2009/09/hard-rockin-multi-touch-wall-las-vegas.html