Want to see a MultiTouch laptop?
Posted by Emil Protalinski on 26 October 2007 - 19:43 · 11 comments & 10567 views
Channel 9's Charles Torre has put together half an hour of footage of his trip to Microsoft Research in the UK where he got to take a look at some of Microsoft’s work behind MultiTouch laptops and LCD monitors. During the video, he gets to know the scientists behind MultiTouch: Shahram Izadi, Alex Butler, and Steve Hodges as well as the thought behind it, and what makes it different from Microsoft's Surface Computer. “Tune in and learn about the Who, What, How and Why behind MSR's innovative MultiTouch. It's pretty amazing and, surprisingly, not incredibly complicated technology.” I’ve clipped out the 3 minutes (right click => save target as to download) where the actual proof of concept prototype is showed off, but the whole video is a quite interesting one in itself, so I suggest you watch it, if you have over 500MB to spare!

Stream: Clipped Video (3 minutes)
Download: Full Video (30 minutes)
News source: Channel 9


There are 11 additional comments
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Quote this comment Reply to this comment #1 Posted by spacey on 26 Oct 2007 - 20:20
I watched the short clip. Hrm, interesting but not that great after seeing the 8 foot multi-touch panel video here yesterday.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=he-j1BbZf58

Its just a bunch of IR sensors behind the LCD... need some useful software and application for it.
(1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #2 Posted by cha0s on 26 Oct 2007 - 20:44
Seen it before.....when it was in "Minority Report"

pretty cool
Quote this comment #2.1 Posted by linuxamp on 26 Oct 2007 - 22:42
Quote - (cha0s said @ #2)
Seen it before.....when it was in "Minority Report"

In "Minority Report" he never actually touches the screen. It's more like multi-hover or multi-point.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #3 Posted by ecotrojan on 26 Oct 2007 - 22:04
wow
(2 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #4 Posted by Joseph21 on 27 Oct 2007 - 02:36
its sad how people still think pinching is from the iphone
Quote this comment #4.1 Posted by Snooza on 27 Oct 2007 - 03:17
Quote - (Joseph21 said @ #4)
its sad how people still think pinching is from the iphone


I was thinking the same thing.....
Quote this comment #4.2 Posted by Alltruist on 27 Oct 2007 - 08:05
yes..especially sad when Surface had that feature BEFORE iPhone did.

On that note, Apple is actually pushing for making "multi-touch" its trademark [http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/07/06/apple_pushing_for_multi_touch_trademark.html]....sorta BS since Microsoft Research has been leading multitouch technology long before.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #5 Posted by - Kaboose - on 27 Oct 2007 - 08:05
yeh same here, wow!
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #6 Posted by dugbug on 27 Oct 2007 - 12:36
yep, multitouch (photo "pinching", etc) have been researched and demonstrated many years before either the table or iphone, and none of the research originated at apple.

What iphone gets credit for is bringing these innovations to the consumer (just as Jobs did with the mouse and windowing interfaces). Jobs playing up multitouch to his frothy apple goobs just angers a lot of us

-d
(1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #7 Posted by carmatic on 28 Oct 2007 - 01:18
interesting, according to wikipedia, Apple is trying to get the term 'multitouch' registered as their own trademark ... and now here its being touted as 'microsoft's multitouch' ??

'i can actually start to stretch the image out in a sort of typical multi touch scaling interaction that that that , that you would, that you would get with these kinds of technologies'

Last edited by carmatic on 28 Oct 2007 - 01:26
Quote this comment #7.1 Posted by dugbug on 28 Oct 2007 - 15:38
Quote - (carmatic said @ #7)
interesting, according to wikipedia, Apple is trying to get the term 'multitouch' registered as their own trademark ... and now here its being touted as 'microsoft's multitouch' ??

'i can actually start to stretch the image out in a sort of typical multi touch scaling interaction that that that , that you would, that you would get with these kinds of technologies'



Well multitouch dates back to the mid 80's. In fact, almost two decades before the iphone researchers at xerox (ironic ain't it?) demonstrated scaling and pinching with two fingers on a tabletop display.


Its possible to have some unique spelling perhaps.

1992 research concept video of a future gui interface allowing pinching, stretching, etc:
http://www.asktog.com/starfire/index.html

-d
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