Augmented Reality devices are gaining traction gradually in the tech world. A number of companies are trying to create their own fully-functional augmented reality devices. Tech giant Microsoft is also working on Augmented reality devices. Last week Microsoft’s Research team in Cambridge opened its doors to offer a sneak peek showing how augmented reality could be the next big thing in the future.
Microsoft has spent nearly $30 billion on research and development over the past three years. Now Microsoft is focusing on a world of sensors and cameras. Hence Microsoft is trying to develop virtual reality. Last week, Microsoft demonstrated how the company looks forward to improve its Kinect sensor and how those sensors can be used for an augmented reality in future.
Microsoft Research has developed a wrist-worn Digits system which is designed to track hand motions for improved virtual navigation. Its hardware is clunky and requires to connect to computer. To create Digits, the company has combined an infrared laser, camera, and diffuser. With the combination of these, Digits can detect every movement of the wearer’s individual fingers. Andrew Blake, a Microsoft Distinguished Scientist and the Laboratory Director of Microsoft Research Cambridge remarked that the technology is “exploratory at the moment, but it’s at the stage where people are perhaps a little surprised that you could do that so easily.”
Blake also said, “In the future we will see more and more, we believe, of no-touch computing. There is something rather compelling about such a free style of interaction, breaking free from the desktop and being much more expressive. This type of interaction was originally applied to Microsoft’s Kinect camera for gaming, a popular accessory that took the idea of controller-free gaming to the masses. It’s now crossing over to additional devices that might serve to assist Kinect in mapping out the real world for a computer.”
No doubt Microsoft is strongly focusing to develop its augmented reality projects. Microsoft’s Shahram Izadi, a co-leader in the interactive 3D technologies group at Microsoft Research Cambridge said, “Maybe the next big thing is going to be around augmented reality. Let me make that claim, because it is about drawing the physical world into the user interface and its about the user interface coming out into the real world. It’s about these two worlds colliding and merging together.”
Source : The Verge
[ttjad keyword=”best-selling-gadget”]
