As stuck in the mud as Microsoft is in many ways, its research division is on the cutting edge of cool. The latest innovation out of Microsoft Research is a real "holodesk" that lets you physically manipulate virtual objects through the magic of the Kinect. As you can see in the video above, moving your hands to interact with purely digital cubes and balls under the glass of the holodesk is amazingly fluid, simulating how those objects would respond to physical touch in the real world with amazing accuracy.
Like a great many mind-blowing Kinect augmented reality projects before it, the holodesk employs Microsoft's Kinect gaming peripheral — or more specifically its sophisticated 3D sensor, which is capable of tracking movement with razor precision.
The project is in the research phase at the moment, but we can only hope to see this tech pop up for sale eventually for commercial applications. We wouldn't mind spending some time playing with a holodesk of our very own, even if we were only tossing a few cubes around.
[via TheNextWeb]
This article originally appeared on Tecca
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