Microsoft wants you to notice them too – which is why they’ve rolled out a Ford Mustang fitted with Kinect sensors, two Windows 8 tablets, projection screens, and a couple of other neat toys as a proof-of concept to inspire developers to build applications and automotive technologies with Microsoft in mind.
Microsoft has been on a fancy-user-interface-technology kick this week, between the fancy touch-screen projectors and electronic fabric announcements – but the Holodesk sort of wins at the moment, at least for those of us who think 3D environments you can manipulate with your hands are cool.
The nice thing about initiatives like Microsoft Research is that you get to have an early gander at the things that you’re going to be spending stupid amounts of money on next year. Like the OmniTouch, for instance, which projects “touchscreen” interfaces onto pretty much whatever surface you want – desk, paper, or the back of your hand.
At long last, Microsoft has taken their iPod-but-worse MP3 player, the Zune, out behind the shed with a shotgun. Microsoft announced that they would stop making new versions of the music/video player due to “tepid demand.”
I guess this is the future’s MacBook photobooth? Using a 3-D printer and a Microsoft Kinect, folks can get small, low-resolution 3-D sculptures of themselves printed, as displayed at the snappily titled Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction Conference last week.
Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, and holder of the title of “worst teeth for a rich person” also happens to own the world’s second largest yacht – The Octopus. One of the logistical tentacles of the Octopus is a helicopter used to ferry crew and guests to and from the vessel. It crashed into the ocean. Click for the pic.