Microsoft's cutting edge on display at TechFest

If you think the iPhone's touch screen is cool, imagine a device that actually
sees, reflects and responds to your fingers touching the back of the device.

A prototype of that capability was among many that Microsoft
Research showed off at TechFest, Microsoft's annual display of research
projects at the company.

LucidTouch isn't very practical in
its current form. It's a large handheld computer with a small video camera
attached on an arm about a foot's length off the back of the device. But the
technology that enables it could easily change now that the concept is proven,
said Patrick Baudisch, a researcher at Microsoft.

The current setup includes a touch sensor layer on the back of the device.
That senses when a user's fingers are touching it. The camera attached behind
it sends an image of the user's fingers to the device, where the image is overlaid
lightly, like a shadow, on the screen. Baudisch calls it "pseudo-transparent."

In his prototype, he showed a map on the device screen. Moving his fingers
on the back of the device, he could choose an item on the map. The concept solves
the "fat finger problem," where your finger covers up the actual spot
that you're trying to touch on the screen, he said.

The invention would be particularly useful on very small devices. For example,
a watch with a touch screen would be very difficult to use with a finger because
users' fingers are quite large relative to the size of the small screen. With
LucidTouch, a user could touch an area on the wristband of the watch instead
to make choices on the watch face.

The clunky camera arrangement in the prototype might be replaced by a couple
of other technologies, including one that another group is working on that would
use infrared to pick up finger movements, Baudisch said.

Microsoft researchers also showed off a couple of ideas that use wireless technologies.
One group envisions using standard cell phones to help people choose their routes
through traffic.

The concept uses phones already on the market that contain GPS (Global Positioning
System), microphones and accelerometers. Those sensors are used to collect data
about phone users' progress as they travel around a city in a car, sending that
information back to a central site that interprets it.

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