Snowflakes Galore at TechFest 2007 (Part 2)

Recently I reported how encouraged I was by some of the R&D results featured at the Microsoft Research TechFest 2007, a showcase of over 750 global researchers put on by Microsoft Research in Redmond WA.
Some R&D efforts (not specifically those from Microsoft) are addressing the need to index distinguishing features and otherwise enable the recognition from photos that contain a specific building or landmark. As I mentioned in my prior posting, this type of technology could be applied to devices such as a cell phone camera to trigger a map display and other relevant information about your current location based on the photo you take.

Fantastic progress is also being made in this area of automated recognition of photos and video. Some of these developments focus on the ability to do facial and body recognition to identify who is in the picture, while others are enabling the recognition of “objects” such as vehicles and buildings. At TechFest, I saw a demonstration called “Lincoln” (see the video), which works on a mobile phone with a camera (just try to buy a phone without it these days!). It lets you take a photo of a music CD or movie DVD cover and then it automatically links up to reviews and recommendations from others about this album or movie such as those found on Amazon.com. Microsoft has already made this service open to the public, so musicians, for example, can upload their album cover images or posters for upcoming concerts and let users receive links to songs to hear right on their cell phones, purchase concert tickets, or buy the music.

Another fun item at TechFest was a “bubble board” which can be used as a new form of answering machine (see the video). It displays all the messages you’ve received, and instead of a chronological text listing, it gives you a visual set of “bubbles” floating on the screen with the image of the person calling. When you touch a “bubble”, you see details of the message and caller, or it plays the message. The size of the image indicates the size of the message. You can also drag and drop the bubble to either delete it (fun visual of it going down a drain), save it, or add it to your contacts.

If you’d like to see, hear, and learn more about some of the over 100 other research findings that were featured at the Microsoft Research TechFest, check out the following:

• MAKE magazine's account of of what they saw there.  BTW, MAKE is a GREAT read for all you do-it-yourself-ers (DIY). They also have an excellent selection of blogs, podcasts and videos, WARNING:  it's very addictive and a huge time sink  if you have any DIY tendencies!! :-)

• Blog with videos of several projects from the Seattle Post Intelligencer
• Microsoft's more detailed explanation of  other featured research

Almost all of the research projects cited here today provide tangible examples of automated feedback loops, metadata generation, and the use of more visual and auditory formats.

I hope you too can see this trend towards something powerful. As all these individual advancements and capabilities continue to pile up, they produce a cumulative effect. This “mashup” of data and recognition makes it possible to snap a photo and receive all the related information that I mentioned above. Whether you travel to faraway places or just want to know more about the city you live and work in, this type of capability certainly shows why I have such optimism and belief in the Snowflake Effect of mass personalization and the dramatic improvements to learning and performance that this brings to all of us.

Be sure to let me know what YOU find interesting about this or other R&D efforts you may know about out there.

w
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