Hands-on mapping from Microsoft Video

Hands-on mapping from Microsoft Video Transcript

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>> Hey there, I'm Kara Tsuboi, CNET News.com. And here at TechFest 2008 in Redmond, Washington, there are a couple of really neat exhibits showing up new mapping technology. Have you ever heard of the fat-finger problem? You know, when you're using the touch screen on your hand-held and your fingers are simply too fat to accurately type or interact with a map.

>> The problem is, whenever I'm touching something from the front, I'm actually including just that very location I'm trying to interact with. So what people do today is they zoom in, zoom in, zoom in, zoom in until it's really big and then they'll click.

>> Patrick Baudisch, a research scientist with Lucid Touch tells he has a better solution.

>> Instead of interacting to the front, we're interacting with the back. And the moment I do this, your fusion problem goes away and in this case, I'm overlaying a transparent image of my fingers on to the device.

>> Lucid Touch has gone through many different prototypes to achieve this technology.

>> This is the second one we made. The one I brought today. This shows the architect of views right now. This is the LCD screen. There's some -- this is the touch overlaying the front, which means I can actually interact with the front and the back. In order to generate the preview image, we're using a camera on the boom.

>> But it's still a long way to being market ready.

>> We feel that we can actually make this into a size that corresponds to current mobile devices. So, we build this first, so we can get a sense for what's the interaction like and the next thing is how can we make a kind of small mobile device out of it.

>> The second new mapping technology on display at TechFest is called Geolife. It comes from a Microsoft Research team in Beijing.

>> It helps users to visualize, manage and understand their travel experiences on a map. It also facilitates people's ability to connect with their personal past.

>> Here's it works. As you travel and take digital pictures, your GPS device will record your route. Upload it into Geolife and a record of your journey gets plotted on the map.

>> Your friends can see what you saw and understand the whole journey within a few seconds. It's much more convenient than writing a blog and reading the blogs.

>> Developers say the technology would also be used for the travelers curious to explore new city.

>> You can see what other people saw there and make a decision whether should I be there before you go there.

>> But the Lucid Touch and Geolife technologies are in the early stages of development, but both give an idea of the interactive direction mapping is headed. I'm Kara Tsuboi, CNET News.com. ^M00:02:32 [ Music ]