Microsoft Research Community

June 2008 - Technology Trends

  • DIY TV channel

    YBox2 Kit - DIY Set-top box“The YBox2 is a DIY networked set-top box. Connect it to your TV and you can design customized content to be delivered direct from the Internet. This project is great for people who want a new platform to experiment with...
    Filed under:
  • Foldable displays

    More Wiimote monkeying with Johnny Lee“In the above video, he gives a presentation on different types of flexible, foldable displays using the motion tracking of the Wiimote and IR LEDs (and projection) to simulate the displays.” MAKE Read...
    Filed under:
  • Facial video control

    Expression recognition turns humans into remote controls… for robots“Jacob Whitehill at UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering has demonstrated a proof of concept that allows his facial expressions to speed-up and slow-down video...
    Filed under:
  • Kinetic charging

    Orange launches dance-powered phone charger“The Orange Dance Charge is a portable phone charger powered through the kinetic movement of a system of weighs and magnets, which move as you groove. The system’s contained within a jogger-style MP3 arm...
    Filed under:
  • RPG motivation

    Save Money, Go Adventuring With Japanese RPG Piggy Bank“The fantasy-themed piggy bank from Takara Tomy includes a tiny LED screen that plays a tiny role-playing game, in which your hero fights a tower full of monsters. The catch? If you want to...
    Filed under:
  • Easy publishing

    Magcloud: On Demand Magazine Printing“Users upload PDF’s of their magazine to the site and set a desired profit on top of shipping and productions costs. Magcloud then generates a publisher page for your title which provides information, issue previews...
    Filed under:
  • Audio surveillance

    CCTV cameras ‘taught to listen’“The visual-recognition software will be able to identify visual patterns but for the next stage we want to get the camera to pivot if it hears a certain type of sound. “So, if in a car park someone...
    Filed under:
  • Making sense of motion

    Macrosense“At the heart of Macrosense are powerful machine learning algorithms that process time-stamped location data and metadata streams from heterogeneous sources – GPS, WiFi positioning, cell tower triangulation, RFID and other sensors – and...
    Filed under:
  • Projecting and shooting at the same time

    Add your own images to other people’s photos with the Image Fulgurator“The device senses if a camera’s flash goes off and synchronizes a projection on the object being photographed at the same time. The result, as can be seen in the...
    Filed under:
  • Text over video

    Video Comments The Japanese Way (Nico Nico Douga)“Nico Nico’s most distinctive feature is that members communicate via short texts inserted on top of the video feeds. Entries are time-synched and flow over the frame from right to left. Using different...
    Filed under:
  • Pagerank for images

    PageRank for Product Image Search“We cast the image-ranking problem into the task of identifying authority nodes on an inferred visual similarity graph and propose an algorithm to analyze the visual link structure that can be created among a group...
    Filed under:
  • "Fixing" music

    In Search of Perfect Harmony, Through Software“MUSICIANS who want to create note-perfect digital recordings of their performances may soon have a powerful tool to help them: a computer program designed to correct mistakes in their piano riffs or...
    Filed under:
  • Nano-turbine

    ‘Electron turbine’ could print designer molecules“A carbon nanotube that spins in a current of electrons, like a wind turbine in a breeze, could become the world’s smallest printer or shrink computer memory, UK researchers say...
    Filed under:
  • Teen viewing patterns

    New Research Reveals Teens are Taking Control of the Remote“Apparently, parents are no longer making the decisions about what their kids do or don’t watch, nor when they watch it. In the research, more than half of the ‘lab members’ were watching...
    Filed under:
  • Emoticon face

    Emoticon mask will make you smile“The default setting is no expression, but if people shake hands with the wearer, the mask smiles. The project was designed to hide personal emotions by eliciting a different set of public facial expressions that...
    Filed under:
1 2 3 4 5 Next > ... Last »
©2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Trademarks | Privacy Statement | Feedback