back to article Microsoft demos 3D desktop with transparent OLED

Microsoft's Applied Sciences Group has combined a transparent OLED display with an Xbox Kinect sensor and a smidgeon of software sorcery to create a space where users can manipulate on-screen objects at different depths within the screen. The team dubbed the process "view-dependant depth-correction gaze", and demoed it at …

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  1. EddieD
    Thumb Up

    I want one.

    Now.

    All the best,

    1. jai

      Re: I want one.

      that was exactly the same thought it had........and it hasn't changed.

      you can keep your rocket boots and hoverboards for the time being, i want one of these first plskthxbye

    2. Audrey S. Thackeray

      Re: I want one.

      Yeah, one for me too.

      With some virtual Lego.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Look ma!

    Now I can look at my hands on the keyboard *through the screen*. My, isn't that useful. As a habitual touch-typist, I'm having some trouble feeling impressed.

    Yes, they're having tons of fun with their kinect and the fancy fridge door. But advancing the state of the art? About as much as the same idea done in a table (that'd been done better before they did). Or 3d televisions. Or... oh who cares, really. I mean, what truly new does this bring that we couldn't do before? What does it enable or streamline or speed up or improve? Colour me a backward stick-in-the-mud, but I don't see it.

    1. Audrey S. Thackeray

      Re: Look ma!

      I guess there might be many areas where manipulating virtual 3D in actual 3D space might be better than trying to do it in 2D space on a tablet / table screen.

      1. Robert Heffernan
        Go

        Re: Re: Look ma!

        SolidWorks and AutoCad users will be all over this as soon as it hits the shelves. Being able to manipulate and assemble virtual components by hand in 3D space will be such a huge boost to productivity.

    2. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Look ma!

      You don't stumble across game-changing ideas without a lot of tinkering and trying things which turn out to be naff. I commend MS for doing research like this, I don't think most realise how much R&D they do which never sees light of day.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Re: Look ma!

        Also: Where are all the Linux companies doing this sort of research?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Re: Re: Look ma!

          Lacking the marketeering prowess of redmond, you tend to not see them reported in the mainstream or even industry rags. Rather, you go look at various conferences where people show off their "hacker space" free time handiwork. At which point some rep or other sees it and possibly buys it, or more likely steals the idea and puts a big marketeering push behind it. The latter happened with "micros~1 surface". I'd been playing with various versions done by hobbyists at conferences (at one point a whole roomful) before that ever hit the industry rags.

          So to me it was already old hat, and I'm by no means that well-connected or part of any in-crowd. What would've been useful was to commoditise it, make it cheap and easily affordable. You know, like they pride themselves on making tech easier accessible to the masses. Yet they didn't deliver on that. Instead redmond put it in noisy showcase boxes parked in libraries, as a philantropic advert for itself, and left it at that.

          Most of this sort of thing isn't that new. Sometimes the tricks are well over a hundred years old, only done in shiny! new! technology, like this see-through fridge door. The problem is to discern whether it's truly useful or maybe just mainly marketing. If it's from a marketeering company, I'd say some scepticism is warranted.

          I really have no idea about this particular thing, and maybe it'll be useful. When and to whom will it be available, and will it work with other-than-windows machines too, or will we be locked in again?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Looks like that Minority Report display will be here sooner rather than later

    so all we need know is some mutants with future-perception powers

    1. Captain Hogwash
      Big Brother

      Re: Looks like that Minority Report display will be here sooner rather than later

      We already have them. They are called data miners. Don't feed them.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    has apple already got a patent on this?

    if not how long before they have???

    1. ThomH

      Re: has apple already got a patent on this?

      Apple possibly has something amongst the haul they got from FingerWorks — the latter was a gesture recognition company that specialised in multitouch but which presumably patented the gesture stuff independently of the specific technology.

      Hopefully everyone will have had their fingers so badly burnt by the patent process by the time that this stuff is commercialised that it won't matter.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Question...

    Will it crash all the time?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Question...

      Perhaps no more than my Win 7 machine, which has crashed precisely zero times in the 14 months I've had it, being used 8-10 hours a day 5 days a week.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Question...

      Only if it runs Linux.

      Yup my W7 lappy full of crap crashes less 9never) than my Ubuntu machine doing very little.

  6. xyz Silver badge
    Headmaster

    AAARRRGGHHH...apostrophe alert

    demo's....WTF. I'm crying.

    Apart from that, pretty cool kit

    1. Chimp

      Re: AAARRRGGHHH...apostrophe alert

      The apostrophe is not needed here (actually wrong, in my opinion).

    2. DRendar
      Headmaster

      Re: AAARRRGGHHH...apostrophe alert

      Hmmm... arguable really.

      If the apostrophe is there to denote that the word "demonstrations" has been abbreviated, then it is actually quite correct.

      If however it is mistakenly there to denote a multiple of the word 'demo' then it is incorrect.

      So really - it's OK either way.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    French girl

    She's quite fit. I'd give her 7 out of 10

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: French girl

      Mlle. Boulanger eh? Show us your baps!

      Anon. in case my French colleagues see this...

    2. jungle_jim

      Re: French girl

      fucksake. i watched the video and thought, im going to comment about having a beer or two and then ruining her.

      and some bastard pretty much beat me to it. thumbs up to you sir!

  8. Kikki D
    Trollface

    Oooooh

    Lawnmover man :P

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Color me stuck in the mud

    Now I can have an inspiring view of the tangle of wires, dust and misplaced crap normally hidden by my display.

    Lovely...

  10. fourThirty
    Thumb Up

    Awesome, this could take CAD to the next level...

    Where are all the MS-bashers now?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      We're right here...

      ... contemplating the difference between what they create as concept, and what they actually force on the consumer.

    2. Snapper
      Thumb Up

      'Bashers'

      You are wrong, this could take prØn to the next level!

  11. K
    Coat

    Pr0n

    Now all they need is for it to give "touch" feedback... then we can have real 3D BOOBIES!!!

    1. Vic

      Re: Pr0n

      > then we can have real 3D BOOBIES!!!

      Many of us already do :-(

      Vic.

  12. Chicken Marengo

    Another patent war coming?

    After all, I believe Apple invented this next week.

    1. jungle_jim
      Facepalm

      Re: Another patent war coming?

      that grid has sharp corners. we're safe.

  13. lemmac

    see through fridge door?

    one thing that concerns me about transparent fridge doors - would the light turn off when the door was closed and if so would it not defeat the object ?

  14. Tony Paulazzo
    Alien

    Apostrophe S

    Should only be used where it's esthetically pleasing.

    Also, if they're using a camera to track eyes (the kinect), I'm thinking (hoping), they could do that with touchscreen phones and tablets, creating a faux 3D effect with existing tech. That'd be pretty cool.

    1. SYNTAX__ERROR
      Headmaster

      Re: Apostrophe S "Should... be used where it's esthetically pleasing"

      Incorrect. Apostrophes should be used according to the defined protocols which are there to ensure the use of said punctuation conveys the meaning that the author intended.

      1. Lockwood

        Re: Re: Apostrophe S "Should... be used where it's esthetically pleasing"

        You must of scene some nasty stuff in the past, pacifically, preposition's which shouldn't be used to end a sentence with.

        (I feel so dirty now)

        1. Crisp

          Re: Re: Re: Apostrophe S "Should... be used where it's esthetically pleasing"

          Not as dirty as I felt reading it.

  15. Clive Galway
    Stop

    Not convinced

    Surely unless you can touch type perfectly (For all keys, not just regular alphanumerics), there are going to be occasions when the onscreen pixels will block your view of the keyboard - ie fullscreening an app would be a no-no.

    Either that or the (active) pixels would have to be translucent, meaning your image quality is pretty poor. Gonna be utterly useless for any kind of artistic work.

    I think the transparency and having your hands behind the screen is a bit of a dead end myself. It certainly is never going to take off as the dominant form factor IMHO.

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Not convinced

      I'm sure people said that touchscreens for mobile keypads were a gimmick since you couldn't text without looking any more. And yet here we are.

  16. Graham Bartlett

    "Reach round"

    Surely Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann is worth the quote here: "I'll bet you're the kind of guy that would fuck a person in the ass and not even have the goddam common courtesy to give him a reach-around!"

  17. Oninoshiko

    Question

    1) Can you name ONE product that came out of MS research and was a viable product?

    2) Do you really see a use for this on the desktop? I dont. It might be useful for CAD / Modeling. I'm not convenced how much.

    Yes, it does look neat though.

    1. Bjorg

      Re: Question

      1) Too easy. Kinect. And that's just the one I *know* came out of MS research. Like someone else commented, the general public has no idea how much stuff actually comes out of there, and we probably never will. Yes, blah blah blah they bought a *part* of the tech from another company, not the whole damn thing.

      2) No, but then again I haven't thought about it. I'm sure there are a *ton* of uses though, but what do you want to bet MS screws it up and Apple creates the exact same thing, advertises how it's actually useful for playing angry birds, claims that it's "innovation", claims they came up with it on their own and everyone else copied them despite this article and thousands of other sources proving otherwise, puts an enormous price tag on it, and gobbles up even more money from people that can't afford it, but buy everything from Apple anyway. It probably would be useful for CAD/Modeling, but it will never see the light of day because MS says "dur, we created something, someone else find a use for it".

  18. druck Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Awkward

    I know it's only a concept, but how awkward does reaching around the bottom of the screen look?

    Also why are they using what looks like an Acorn Electron for a keyboard?

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Give it 5 minutes....

    Give it 5 minutes.... You will see Apple try and patent this too.... pilphering grabasses!

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