Microsoft Research presents its case for the inclusion of pen input along side of touch input on Tablet PCs and other touch-enabled computers. While Microsoft and Apple have taken opposing views on the need for pen input on computing devices, there are indeed good arguments on both sides. Unfortunately the more obvious and useful cases for pen input, such as sketching, are slightly less academic, making researchers strive to come up with more novel uses. In any case, several intriguing use-cases are presented and perhaps they will inspire more practical applications down the road. It seemed like only yesterday when every multi-touch computer simply demonstrated rotating and zooming photos.

Presented at SIG CHI 2010 by Ken Hinckley, Jenny Rodenhouse, Koji Yatani, Andy Wilson, Michel Pahud, Hrvoje Benko, Nicole Coddington, and Bill Buxton.

Stepping up to the plate is Patrick Baudisch, now with the Human-Computer Interaction group at Hasso Plattner Institut. He and his students have kicked multi-touch up a notch demonstrating multi-toe recognition. Their research has enabled them to recognize individuals by the heat signatures of their shoes, as well as recognize various interactions such as pointing, leaning, head tracking, and more. It may be early, but it looks like a step in the right direction.

10/GUI, a project by R. Clayton Miller, demonstrates a proposed means of interacting with a desktop computer via a touch interface. Stepping out of the box of traditional approaches to designing peripheral devices, Clayton takes a leap forward in not only designing the hardware aspects but also rethinking the software aspects of the computer for use with the device. Overall the idea is intriguing and inspires further thought on touch interfaces for the desktop.

Built by Strukt for the 2009 TOCA ME design conference, the Strucktable (a 70 inch multi-touch display) uses VVVV for its demo applications. The Struckt team developed 5 applications for the table including: Geometry Drawing, Paint Balls, Media Browser, Elastic Universe, and a mysterious 5th one. While the touch-table is not particularly revolutionary, the team has documented its design and build process enabling others to follow in their footsteps.

Hot off the heels of Microsoft’s Business Division’s video short being released, Seattle-based Oh, Hello has posted a longer (6 minute) variation. The video presents many concepts designed by the Office Labs team at Microsoft in the realms of surface computing and natural user interfaces.

Stephen Elop, President of the Microsoft Business Division, has been showing their vision for the future where nearly every surface will be an interactive display. With the looming battle between companies over patented gestures as mentioned in Dan Saffer’s talk, it is now an arms race to see which company will infiltrate homes and office with gestural and touch based systems. Regardless, it is great to see some of the concepts explored in the video.

Lachlan Cash from Microsoft demonstrates using touch technologies for business applications. Moving beyond rotating and resizing photos, Microsoft Dynamics has adapted Microsoft Surface for use as a wearhouse management tool. And while Surface in it’s table top form may not make it into offices very quickly, with Windows 7 supporting multi-touch, there is a great chance that other form factors will.

To be presented at CHI 2009, Nano Touch uses a touch sensitive input on the back-side of devices to get around fingers obstructing the screen on the front-side of the device. A big problem on very small displays, nano touch is poised to be highly utilized in future electronics. The Nano Touch has been designed by Patrick Baudisch and Gerry Chu at Micorosft Research and in partnership with Hasso Plattner Institute.

Jeff Han, the most prominent man in the field of multi-touch technology, discusses the benefits of touch screen displays. Jeff argues (in reference to the movie Minority Report) that touch screens are the most effective means for preforming tasks in virtual 3D space.

Lemur is a multi-touch controller for audio and video applications. This setup uses Lemur to control Processing, a real time visualization tool.