On the third day of its Professional Developers Conference, Microsoft cranked up the “wow” factor by showing off some projects under development in the company’s research wing. Rick Rashid, senior vice president of Microsoft research, delivered the day’s keynote address and used the opportunity to talk about Microsoft’s ideas for dealing with a variety of technological and social challenges.
“Advances in software hold the key to progress in multiple fields,” Rashid said. “The modern world generates massive data sets — online search, astronomical phenomena, the climate, particle physics, and the human genome, to name a few areas. With software, we can capture, analyze and make sense of this data to help combat global warming, develop life-saving vaccines, and enrich our kids’ education.”
In keeping with Microsoft’s growing fascination with touch, the company has been focusing on both surfaces and sensors.
Rashid demonstrated the newly released software developer’s kit for Microsoft Surface, a computing platform that Microsoft hopes will change the way people interact with digital information.
The Surface interface will enable people to interact directly with content, without having to use a keyboard or mouse. The software recognizes 52 different gestures, and will enable users to move more than one object on the screen at the same time. Microsoft says its new software will also be able to recognize objects placed on the surface.
During his discussion of Surface, Rashid introduced Steve Hodges and Sharam Izadi from Microsoft’s research lab in Cambridge, Mass., to demonstrate the company’s plans to go beyond a two-dimensional surface.
“What we’re trying to do with this project,” Hodges said, “is not just do surface computing, but actually bring the interaction so that it works in the area above the surface as well, so you can interact in the space above the surface, and really we’re talking about bringing the user…