At the heart of Pivot are “Collections.” Collections combine large groups of similar items on the internet, so we can begin viewing the Web as a “web” rather than a series of isolated pages. Anyone can create collections of their own.
Find out more on the Pivot Developers page, where there are tools available to assist in the generation of your own Pivot Collection
Microsoft is currently testing a product concept called Office Talk from the Microsoft Office Labs.
Ever wish you could share information broadly within your organization without emailing everyone? Ever wish you could keep the pulse of what people in your organization think is interesting? Microblogging has that potential. OfficeTalk is a concept test to explore the value of microblogging in the enterprise.
OfficeTalk is deployed internally at Microsoft and has seen over 10,000 visitors and hundreds of messages posted daily.
Because this is an early-stage concept, the OfficeTalk microblogging experience itself looks very similar to other well-known services. (I wonder if they mean Twitter ? ) The key difference is that the enterprise owns the data since the OfficeTalk server is hosted in the customer’s organization (on-premise).
With the forthcoming General Election in the UK, this couldn’t have been timed better.
There is an exercise undertaken by students during the second term of the second year of their Undergraduate Computer Science degree course at Cambridge University called the Group Design Projects.
A number of projects are undertaken, and videos of the final presentations are available on the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory YouTube Channel
This application analyses tweets made by UK politicians to determine whether they are showing independent thoughts, simply following their party line, or are they adopting ideas from the opposition agenda perhaps?
If you come out with a new product should it always contain the word Cloud?
Microsoft have described a technology called the “Cloud Mouse” at their recent TechFest 2010, demonstrating a novel hardware and interaction design that illustrates the properties of a general-purpose user interface for cloud computing. Eh?
The scenario the team envisions is one in which data is presented through handheld projectors or augmented eyeglasses, or displayed across multiple surface displays as 3-D visualizations. In terms of hardware, the Cloud Mouse is the key to this interactive experience. When a user moves the Cloud Mouse through these data visualizations, differentiated sensory outputs such as vibrations or sound will alert users to locations where they can they can retrieve or view information, post or store information, or steer closer toward a target.
Basic Operation
Well I hope that’s clear.
Whatever the mode of display, the Cloud Mouse is designed for virtual content and enables interaction with 360 degrees of movement, spatial depth, proximity, and geometric relationships between objects. In one demo scenario, the user views a photo as though standing inside the picture with the ability to view 360 degrees, make the mouse point up and down, and move deeper into the picture.
“The Cloud Mouse achieves a number of goals,” Harper says. “It allows the user to navigate across multiple screens with great precision. It’s tactile and feels natural to use. You can drag and drop by grasping it. You can use it to point directly at objects in the cloud space or drag and drop objects across different screens. We want users to feel as though they are right inside in the cloud space.”
So it’s a pointing device thingy that you can squeeze then. I think I still prefer the Wii Nunchuck though…
Demonstrated at Microsoft Techfest 2110 by Chunhui Zhang from Microsoft Research Asia
Mobile Surface is a novel interaction system for mobile computing. Our goal is to bring the Microsoft Surface experience to mobile scenarios and, more importantly, to enable 3-D interaction with mobile devices. We will demonstrate how to transform any surface, such as a coffee table or a piece of paper, into a Mobile Surface by using a mobile device and a camera-projector system. Besides the Surface, we will show 3-D object imaging, augmented reality, and multiple-layer 3-D information visualization. In particular, we have developed a system with the camera-projector component to scan 3-D objects in real time while doing normal projection. To visualize, 3-D data can be projected onto a surface formed by a piece of paper while maintaining the original scale as if it were printed on that paper, and a user can interact with the projected content with a hand. Mobile Surface enables you to interact with digital contents and information around you from anywhere.
A 3D bio-printing machine has been developed by Organovo, and is intended for use in the manufacture of human tissues and organs.
“Scientists and engineers can use the 3D bio printers to enable placing cells of almost any type into a desired pattern in 3D,” said Murphy. “Researchers can place liver cells on a preformed scaffold, support kidney cells with a co-printed scaffold, or form adjacent layers of epithelial and stromal soft tissue that grow into a mature tooth. Ultimately the idea would be for surgeons to have tissue on demand for various uses, and the best way to do that is get a number of bio-printers into the hands of researchers and give them the ability to make three dimensional tissues on demand.”
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