ThinSight from Microsoft

Last Tuesday I had the opportunity to go to Microsoft’s Innovation day at their offices in London Victoria. I was there to back up their claim that they are being initiative in Education, which I must admit with practical skills they are.

I managed to sample some of the excellent research work that is being done at the Cambridge Research facility.

However there was one display that caught my eye more than any other. That Display was ThinSight. On the surface it appeared to be well just like Surface but it doesn’t work the same way, which I feel will ultimately give ThinSight more progression opportunities.

I got talking to Shahram Izadi who is working on the project and I was impressed with how truly passionate he was about using technology on the Desktop to enhance the Users experience. He explained that how ThinSight works fundamentally is different. Instead of being purely touch based ThinSight uses the reflection of light to detect where an object is. It uses Circuit boards like the one below to detect when light is reflected back.




By using this method the object could be weightless as long as it reflects the light back which is a potential Issue with Surface. Also it can be used on normal screens as Alex Butler from Microsoft explained he had somewhat voided the warranty of the screen on display by taking it apart and placing the circuit board inside.

It has similar applications to Surface but one thing that was cool is that as it detects infrared you can shoot an infrared gun at the screen which would be good for gamers, As well as being able to use the infrared for communication. This project looks really exciting credit should go to all the people working on it, hopefully they are able to take it to new levels.

Here are some more Pictures I took whilst I was there I hope you think they are interesting. Also see this link http://www.billbuxton.com/thinsight1.pdf


Bluetooth Picture of me



Paint Brushes



Water riples