I feel especially fortunate to be here in Melbourne, Australia, to participate in the launch of the Microsoft Research Centre for Social Natural User Interfaces (opens in new tab). This is a joint research center between the University of Melbourne (opens in new tab) and Microsoft Research, in partnership with the state government of Victoria and Microsoft Australia. The center will explore applications of natural user interfaces—better known as NUI—in social situations. It will be the world’s first joint research center dedicated to studying and perfecting the social applications of NUI.
As regular readers of this blog know, NUI enables us to interact with technology by using natural human capabilities for communication and manipulation of the physical world. The best-known examples come from the gaming world, where, for instance, Kinect for Xbox 360 uses natural gestures, voice commands, and body movements to slay villains or sink a putt. And ever since the release of the Kinect for Windows (opens in new tab) software development kit in 2011, developers have been finding novel applications of NUI beyond the universe of Halo 3: for example, to view medical images during surgery (opens in new tab).
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The Social NUI Centre will promote interdisciplinary research that spurs the development of applications to facilitate communication, collaboration, and social interaction in the home and workplace; in public spaces such as museums and events; in formal and informal educational setting, including classrooms and online courses; and in the delivery of healthcare. I am looking forward to the Social NUI Centre opening the floodgates to new innovative social uses of NUI. The potential is limited only by our imagination.
As the world’s first joint research center devoted to social NUI in Australia, this initiative stands as a testament to the University of Melbourne’s academic prowess and the government of Victoria’s commitment to high quality IT research. We expect the Social NUI Centre to create new social NUI applications and to serve as a testing ground for NUI technologies developed by Microsoft Research, as well as to provide internships for University of Melbourne doctoral students and extend Microsoft Research’s collaboration with University of Melbourne faculty and students.
—Tony Hey (opens in new tab), Vice President, Microsoft Research Connections
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