Seven software development companies are about to embark on a interesting journey into perceptual computing. Another Ultimate Coder Challenge has started.
The teams will be working with the amazing Perceptual Computing hardware and SDK to produce an application that showcases what perceptual computing is all about. 3D object tracking, facial analysis, gesture and voice input are at their disposal; Leading edge hardware and techniques that one day could be in the frame of your Ultrabook.
On Friday we will be announcing our participation in a new Intel-sponsored competition to develop showcase applications that use gesture, tracking and voice input using the new Perceptual Computing developer hardware and SDK that Intel have developed with their partners.
In this article I want to put some thoughts forward about perceptual computing, how it can be used, some of the issues and a few ground-rules but first we need to talk about the past.
It was towards the end of last year that we signed-off with the first ever Ultimate Coder Ultrabook Challenge where four teams had 6 weeks to code an application that would highlight the unique features of Ultrabooks. Based around the use of sensors we learnt a lot of useful coding tips, user interface do’s and don’ts and saw six teams producing a varied range of applications. I have recently been in contact with some of the teams to get an update on what they learnt and to get coding and marketing tips for other developers thinking of working with Ultrabooks.
Coming soon! Ultimate Coder Ultrabook Challenge II
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Intel have just published the results of a study into the use of a digitizer and stylus on an Ultrabook.
Those of you that were into tablets in the mid 2000’s will know that Windows TabletPCs were very much stylus-oriented. Windows XP Tablet Edition included support for handwriting and the now-missing TIP, a floating input panel that would appear when an input box was selected. The digitizer was not only good for natural input but also for detecting and using something that many people forget when moving to finger touch – the hover action. Hovering meant you could activate contextual features and, simply put, see where you were putting the pointer. Over the last 10 years the finger-optimised touch layer has taken over and user interfaces have moved along to allow the finger to be used as the pointer but Windows 8 still supports handwriting input and there are still a number of important use-cases for the pen.
Intel’s study addresses the user-experience aspects of using a stylus on a clamshell device by sitting down and discussing the desires and issues with a global audience. The study also helps to strengthen some previous study findings around touchscreens, keyboards and touchpads. For example, Intel found that 56% of people asked wanted touch and a stylus on their ideal laptop. 22% of people said they don’t want a touchpad at all!
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It’s Friday which means it’s time to give some attention to the software side of things with our continuing series of articles written in collboration with Intel. This week we’ve got the first ever Ultrabooknews podcast for you and guesting on the podcasts is Intel’s community manager for Ultrabooks and tablets, Bob Duffy.
Bob works in a team responsible for the Intel Developer Zone – the one-stop-shop for all your software dev information, forums, competitions, blogs, code examples, SDKs and more. The Intel Development Zone Ultrabook section is here.
In the podcast (24 minutes long) we have a great discussion about what happened at CES, about Ultrabook convertible form factors, what Haswell brings to the table, Connected Standby, CLovertrail, Bay Trail, touch, sensors, perceptual computing, events, competitions and more.
Intel have just announced their Media SDK 2013, the software development kit that lets developers get to some of the unique media transcoding features found in the Intel processing platforms. As a core part of Intel Quick Sync that you find used in video conversion and video editing tools it’s something that can really help those video editing and rendering sessions and can help to improve battery life under these operations.
Over the next 24 hours we’ll be preparing for CES. Ultrabooknews and UMPCPortal aren’t in Las Vegas this year but we will be bringing you all the news and adding the analysis that we often don’t have time for when we’re there.
To kick of the CES 2013 analysis I’ve put together a set of technology and features that you should be watching out for during next week and expecting to hit the Ultrabook ecosystem in 2013. We’ve come a long way already but 2013 is the big year. It’s the year when Intel says that the Ultrabook ecosystem will be finally ready to deliver what they planned many years ago.
My new favorite thing – perceptual computing. Actually it’s hand gestures, object tracking and finger tracking hardware, voice recognition and an SDK we’re looking at here and Intel are pushing it hard. There’s a dev kit a free SDK and I think it’s going to be an important part of computing control in the future – Minority Report style. The hands-on demo here is shown on an Ultrabook.
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