Morris Lim
This article published by Microsoft describes the
effort that its Research department has spent in human-computer interaction
with presentations in the CHI conference of 2006. Since 1996, Microsoft has devoted money and
human resources into this field.
The article presents two examples of their research
accomplishment. The first one is a
digital family calendar assistant tool that can help the family to make
schedules of events such as watching soccer games or doctor appointments. According to this article, the calendar is a
crucial fact in family activities because the family calendar is a tool that
helps the family to become aware of activities and further brings coordination
to the family. By digitalizing the
calendar family, researchers hope that it will be easier for family members to
have access to it via the internet or other mobile devices.
The second one is called “Phlat”,
which is a new interface designed for the windows desktop search function. Supposedly it can more easily help users to
surf through and organize their personal data, such as e-mails and favorite
WebPages more easily. Users can search
through their computer just by the related words they remember instead of the
exact file name or phrases the file contained.
The article also mentions that Microsoft
contributes 11 percent of the research papers in the CHI conference.
Reference:
Canadian
Scientists and Microsoft Researchers Present New Ways to Use and interact with
Computers at home and Work ,Microsoft Crop,
URL:
http://webwire.com/ViewPressRel_print.asp?SESSIONID=&aId=13045