New Image Composite Editor (ICE) from Microsoft Research does amazing things

For the TechFest 2010, Microsoft Research  is releasing a new version of ICE (please note it links to the MSR ICE site , which at present is having the older ver. of ICE) . The new ver is not yet made public, but soon it will be.

EDIT (190310) :The new ver of ICE is now available, Please check - http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ice/

Also check - ICE Is Now Synthy

Pl.note some features described in this post are because of plug-ins which may not be yet available.

 

 

“Image Composite Editor (ICE) with Multi-Image Fusion.  In the current version of ICE, it provides advanced features for panoramic stitching such as choosing the stitch’s orientation, custom projection, and selecting a 360 stitch’s mid-point, and this tool also integrates nicely as a plug-in into Windows Live Photo Gallery. Here we’ll show you some of the upcoming new features in ICE such as:

• Structured Panoramas
• Stitching Panoramas from Video
• Sharp Panoramas from Blurry Videos
• Creating Photographs from Videos
• Multi-Image Denoising and Sharpening using Lucky Imaging ”

In the demo as we see the new ver. of Image Composite Editor (ICE) does amazing things. You’ll have to see the demo video to understand.

New Cloud-Computing Interaction

Check this cool demo of new way of interacting with the cloud. Min Wang from Microsoft Research, Asia gives the demo about it with a cloud mouse. This will be part of TechFest2010.

 

With cloud computing, users can access their personal data anywhere and anytime. Cloud computing also will enable new forms of data to be provided for users, with applications ranging from Web data mining to social networks. But cloud computing necessitates new interaction metaphors and input-output technology. The cloud mouse is one such technology. Every user will have one. It will be a secure key to every user’s cloud data. And, with six degrees of freedom and with tactile feedback, the cloud mouse will enable users to orchestrate, interact with, and engage with their data as if they were inside the cloud.

Here is how a Cloud Mouse looks like -

 

Check out how a picture gets shared to another device, just like magic !

 

 

Check the demo video -

Microsoft OneAlbum - Find your photos in other Social Networks

Microsoft Research, Israel working on OneAlbum Project is another technology being demoed at TechFest2010. Its a new face-recognition algorithm which allows you to find photos you want across other Social networks.

The Project says :

Today, my album refers to a collection of photos I have taken. But many photos relevant to me—such as photos of me or my children—are in my friends' albums. OneAlbum automatically finds relevant photos in my friends' albums on social networks or in shared albums, brings them to my album, and shows them side-by-side with the photos I've taken. For example, if I was at a party, I'll see all photos from that party—those I've taken and those my friends took. The technology behind OneAlbum is a novel, unsupervised face-recognition algorithm. It analyzes the photos in my album to find automatically the faces of people I most care about, based on frequency of their appearance; no tagging is required. Then, using the social-network graph and other information, OneAlbum crawls my friend's albums looking for photos of people that interest me. The algorithm was tested on real large-scale albums including tens of thousands of photos and achieved accuracy rates as high as 90 percent.

Watch the demo video of OneAlbum -

 

Mobile Natural User Interfaces – Using your arm as keyboard

Check out one more amazing technology that Microsoft Research has come up with. The Mobile Natural User Interfaces (NUI). A muscle computer interface, a system that senses finger gestures based on muscle activity on forearm.

 

 

 

Controlling mobile phone scenario just by tapping on an arm, just like on a keyboard or a mouse click. So this input device (arm) goes everywhere with you unlike Keyboard and mouse.

“….We take advantage of sensing technologies that enable us to decode the signals generated by the body. We will demo muscle-computer interfaces, electromyography-based armbands that sense muscular activation directly to infer finger gestures on surfaces and in free space, and bio-acoustic interfaces, mechanical sensors on the body that enable us to turn the entire body into a tap-based input device.”

This will be featured at TechFest2010.

Check out the demo video showing – playing guitar in just thin air using your arm and fingers. Another demo shows using your arm as keyboard and mouse controlling various menu options.

 

The Translating Telephone – Live translation of telephone calls

Microsoft Research is demoing some of the coolest technologies at TechFest 2010 . One of them is the Translating Telephone,  which does the live speech-to-text and speech-to-speech translation of telephone calls. 

“Soon the language barrier will no longer be an issue. This piece of technology allows two users, speaking different languages, to communicate instantly. The speakers audio is turned into text, then that text is translated into another language and spoken aloud to the other party in the conversation. This could truly change the world.”

Check out the demo video -