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Though early Kinect patents showed its potential for sign language translation, Microsoft quashed any notion early on that this would become a proper feature. However, that hasn’t stopped Redmond from continuing development of the idea. Microsoft Research Asia recently showed off software that allows the Kinect to read almost every American Sign Language gesture via hand tracking, even at conversational speeds. In addition to converting signs to text or speech, the software can also let a hearing person input text and “sign” it using an on-screen avatar. All of this is still confined to a lab so far, but the researchers hope that one day it’ll open up new lines of communication between the hearing and deaf — a patent development we could actually get behind. See its alacrity in the video after the break.

Filed under: Cameras, Science, Alt, Microsoft

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Via: Gizmodo

Source: Microsoft Research

Since we saw Illumiroom at CES in January, the research has come quite a ways. But while it’s still a spectacular technology display, don’t look for it to pop up in any Xbox announcements in the near future. In fact, Microsoft Research’s Hrvoje Benko and Brett Jones told us during a interview that while they have Illumiroom technology working well at this point, they’re not likely to even demo it to the public until July at Siggraph.

That’s not to say that you’re not going to want it. The researchers showed in detail exactly how it works: they use a Kinect to scan your living room, then project a series of “illusions” onto it with a wide-screen projector, getting the colors just right using a technique called “radiometric compensation.” The projector and Kinect can be mounted in any convenient spot in the room, like the ceiling or a table. While the technology can be used with other forms of entertainment, researchers concentrated on gaming, since they’re able to generate source material that works well with the effects. Some of those illusions include “focus,” which displays special effects around the images, “segmented focus,” to extend the display to portions of the living space (requiring extra material to be generated), and “appearance,” changing the look of your room by giving it a cartoon appearance, for instance. Despite the still-early phase of the research, it’s definitely whetting our appetite for more — and you can see an interview with the researchers, along with a full raw video of the presentation after the break.

Filed under: Gaming, Science, Microsoft

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It’s not a new component of Bing (not yet, anyway), but Microsoft has taken the wraps off a new small-scale search project at its TechFest event this week — one with a particular focus on so-called viral content. Appropriately dubbed ViralSearch, the effort from Microsoft Research currently uses Twitter as a source for all its data, and offers a variety of ways to track and visualize how a story, photo or video spreads from one outlet or individual to hundreds or thousands of others. That includes a profile view of sorts, which lets you see how influential a particular person was in spreading an item, and how prolific they are in general. Unfortunately, it is still just a research project so you can’t try it out yourself just yet, and there’s no word on any plans for it to become a commercial product. In the meantime, you can get a quick overview of how it works in the video after the break.

Filed under: Internet, Microsoft

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Via: The Verge

Source: Microsoft Research

It’s no secret that Microsoft and Nokia are aiming to make Windows Phone the OS of choice when it comes to mobile photography, whether through optical image stabilization or the Lens app lineup. The latest camera augmentation code to come down the pike is Blink, an app built by Microsoft Research that brings a special burst mode to WP8 devices. Blink works by snapping a series of 16 shots each time you take a photo, and lets you choose which picture’s worth keeping. It’s an an excellent tool for those looking to take action photos, but there’s a catch — the pictures taken by Blink are of less-than-impressive quality, with a max resolution of 800 x 488. That said, if such an imaging safety net sounds good to you, there’s a video showing it off in action after the break, and you can grab the app at the source below.

Update: It seems that the images Blink produced on our Samsung ATIV Odyssey are not representative of the app’s true capabilities. One of the app’s creators reached out to tell us that Blink is set to output images that are 1280 x 720, and the glitch we unwittingly discovered is being investigated.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Microsoft

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Via: All About Windows Phone

Source: Windows Phone Store

A team led by researchers at Microsoft’s UK-based R&D lab has crafted a system that tracks the full 3D pose of a user’s hand without the need for a pesky glove. Dubbed Digits, the Kinect-inspired rig latches onto a user’s wrist and utilizes a diffuse infrared light, IR laser, camera and inertial measurement unit to track fingertips and just five key points of a hand. Leveraging a pair of mathematical models developed in-house after studying the mechanics of the human hand, the group uses the captured data to extrapolate the position of a user’s paw. The team envisions the solution as a supplement to touch-based interfaces, a method for eyes-free control of mobile devices and as a gaming controller that could work in conjunction with Kinect or similar systems. In its current state, the device is composed of off-the-shelf parts and needs to be tethered to a laptop, but the ultimate goal is to create a mobile, self contained unit the size of a wrist watch. Hit the break to catch a video of the setup in action or tap the second source link below for more details in the group’s academic paper.

Continue reading Microsoft Research crafts wrist-worn device that tracks hand gestures in 3D space (video)

Filed under: Misc

Microsoft Research crafts wrist-worn device that tracks hand gestures in 3D space (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Oct 2012 09:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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