Microsoft Research Community

Never buy one of anything . That's advice you should stand by when you're buying unusual gadgets. The advice was good when Randy Pausch offered it to me some 15 years ago, and it's still good now. Of course, with 18 month old twin girls at home, this has become second nature to me. Two boxes...

Automatic screen rotation has been popularized by the iPhone but is also available on the OQO Model 02 thanks to Kenrick's Automatic Screen Rotator Utility ( executable download ). Just hold the device the way you want to use it. The screen flips to the correct portrait or landscape orientation in one...

A conversation with the Tablet PC MVP's this week reminded me of a productivity hack I constructed for my tablet a while back. I guarantee that you will either absolutely love this hack, or think it is the stupidest thing you've ever heard. In my experience, there is little gray area when I mention...

I am having some great fun this week modding up one of my slate Tablet PC's. I have a nutty little idea that I am working towards, but mums the word on that for now... Either it will take the Tablet PC world by storm, or I will prove once and for all that I am a complete kook. Perhaps even both!...

A while back I came up with a hardware invention to make me more productive with my tablet when I'm using it on a desk. I figured why not give a boost to the sagging global economy by unleashing this little gem on the world now, even though it's still at what we might call the "early prototype"...

The annual Computer-Human Interaction (CHI) conference is fast approaching (April 5) and the advance program has been published. That means AlpineInker can scan the list of accepted papers and see what looks cool - but the actual papers aren't available yet, so it's a fun guessing game to read...

I’m Ken Hinckley, a senior researcher at Microsoft Research in Redmond , Washington , where I conduct research on new techniques and approaches to human-computer interaction. This is a longwinded way to say that I try out cool new stuff, throw it at the wall, and see if it sticks. Usually it doesn’t...