I’ve talked on a number of occasions on The Official Microsoft Blog about Natural User Interface (NUI) and the transformational effect this will have on how we interact with technology in the years to come. Kinect is one technology that pushes the boundaries of how we can build more natural ways to interact with technology – through gestures and speech – but that’s only one aspect of our work around NUI.
In the video below, you’ll see Kinect and a number of other technologies, and hear from some of the brightest minds at Microsoft pushing this next frontier of technology forward. As well as gestures and speech, touch is an important part of NUI. Steve Bathiche, who heads up our Applied Sciences Group, shows us Surface 2.0, and Andy Wilson of Microsoft Research shows us a project called LightSpace. Curtis Wong shows us the integration of Worldwide Telescope with Kinect, and introduces the notion that context – what we’re doing, or have done, or where we are located – will all play a part in the emergence of natural user interfaces.
This shift towards natural user interfaces opens up enormous opportunities – in a wide variety of fields. It’s an exciting time for Microsoft, our customers and our partners. As our researchers and developers continue to make advancements in this area, we’ll begin to see products and ideas that we never even thought possible.
Posted by Steve Clayton
Editor, Next at Microsoft Blog