Hardware & devices
Driving advances in hardware, devices and cyber-physical systems.
Video
Project MakeAccessible
Around the world, millions of people with disabilities struggle to use personal computers. They struggle because the devices we typically use to interact with PCs are not designed to suit their needs, and the devices…
Tool
Jacdac Device Development Kit (DDK)
Jacdac (Joint Asynchronous Communications; Device Agnostic Control) is a single wire broadcast protocol for the plug and play of microcontrollers (MCUs) within the contexts of rapid prototyping, making, and physical computing. The Jacdac Device Development…
Video
A mechatronic shape display based on auxetic materials
Shape displays enable people to touch simulated surfaces. A common architecture of such devices uses a mechatronic pin-matrix. Besides their complexity and high cost, these matrix displays suffer from sharp edges due to the discreet…
Video
In-Air Device Formations for Cross-Device Interaction via Multiple Spatially-Aware Armatures
The Ultimate Flexible Workstation? In-Air Device Formations for Cross-Device Interaction via Multiple Spatially-Aware Armatures (“Air Constellations”) “The Ultimate Flexible Workspace” is a new device concept that uses spatially aware armatures, similar to articulated lamps, to…
Video
HapticBots: Distributed Encountered-type Haptics for VR with Multiple Shape-changing Mobile Robots
HapticBots introduces a novel encountered-type haptic approach for Virtual Reality (VR) based on multiple tabletop-size shape-changing robots. These robots move on a tabletop and change their height and orientation to haptically render various surfaces and…
Video
X-Rings: A Hand-mounted 360 Degree Shape Display for Grasping in Virtual Reality [UIST 2021]
X-Rings is a novel hand-mounted 360-degree shape display for Virtual Reality that renders objects in 3D and responds to user-applied touch and grasping force. Designed as a modular stack of motor-driven expandable rings (5.7-7.7 cm…
Video
Precision agriculture uses computer science to make farms more efficient and reduce climate change
On an 8,000-acre family farm in Eastern Washington, Microsoft Research helps deploy precision agriculture, putting AI and powerful data analysis tools in the hands of an eighth-generation farmer, enabling him to adapt to climate extremes…
