Microsoft Surface Research Articles

A Universal Volumetric Haptic Actuation Platform

In this paper, we report a method of implementing a universal volumetric haptic actuation platform which can be adapted to fit a wide variety of visual displays with flat surfaces. This platform aims to enable the simulation of the 3D features of input interfaces. This goal is achieved using four readily available stepper motors in a diagonal cross configuration with which we can quickly change the position of a surface in a manner that can render these volumetric features. In our research, we use a Microsoft Surface Go tablet placed on the haptic enhancement actuation platform to replicate the exploratory features of virtual keyboard keycaps displayed on the touchscreen. We ask seven participants to explore the surface of a virtual keypad comprised of 12 keycaps. As a second task, random key positions are announced one at a time, which the participant is expected to locate. These experiments are used to understand how and with what fidelity the volumetric feedback could improve performance (detection time, track length, and error rate) of detecting the specific keycaps location with haptic feedback and in the absence of visual feedback. Participants complete the tasks with great success (p < 0.05). In addition, their ability to feel convex keycaps is confirmed within the subjective comments.

Effect of different screen brightness and devices on online visual acuity test.

This study aimed to study the difference in test results of online visual acuity (VA) test under different devices and screen brightness conditions and to compare online VA test with Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS). Healthy volunteers with the best corrected VA of 0.0 LogMAR or higher were recruited. VAs under ETDRS were tested first, and then online VA test (the Stanford Acuity Test, StAT) visual acuities using iPad Air2 and Microsoft Surface pro4 under 50% and 100% screen brightness were performed. The VA results and the testing times were compared between different devices and screen brightness conditions. A total of 101 eyes were included in this study. The VA results measured by the StAT were better than those of ETDRS. The VA results measured at 100% screen brightness were better than those of 50% brightness (mean difference, 0.013 logMAR at most, less than 1 letter); the VA results measured by iPad Air2 were better than those of Surface pro4 (mean difference, -0.009 logMAR at most, less than 1 letter). Significantly less time was spent on VA testing under StAT than that under ETDRS. The impact of screen brightness and the device on the VA results generated by online VA tests was clinically insignificant. In addition, online VA tests are found to be reliable and more time efficient than ETDRS.

Magnetic field interactions of smartwatches and portable electronic devices with cardiovascular implantable electronic devices

Abstract Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Introduction Magnetic interference of portable electronic devices (PEDs), such as state-of-the-art mobile phones, with cardiovascular implantable electronic devices (CIEDs) has been reported. Purpose The aim of the study was to quantify the magnetic fields of latest generation Smartwatches and other PEDs and to evaluate and predict their risk of CIED interactions. Method High resolution magnetic field characterization of five smartwatches able to record an ECG Apple Watch, Series 6 and 7, Fitbit Sense, Samsung Galaxy Watch 3, and Withings Move ECG Watch was performed using a magnetic field camera consisting of 1024 calibrated three axis Hall sensors. Maximal distance of 1 mT (10 Gauss) field strength and 1 mT volume was calculated. Ex vivo measurements of the minimal safety distance (MSD) at which no mode switch can be observed between six representative CIEDs and the PEDs was performed. Results were compared to other PEDs, such as digital pens, headsets and their cases, and a Smartphone. Result Maximal 1 mT distances ranged between 10 mm and 19 mm, and 1 mT volumes between 6 cm3 and 19 cm3. The smartwatches and PEDs with measured 1 mT distance 15 mm (B: Microsoft surface pen, C: Airpods Pro case) showed device interaction up to > 15 mm (Figure). Linear regression analysis showed an inverse linear relationship of the MSD with 1 mT distance (B coefficient: 0.459; 95% CI: 0.246-0.672; p<0.001) but not with the volume (p=0.842) Conclusions Standardized measurements of the 1 mT field distance and volume is feasible and has the potential to assess the risk of CIED interaction. Smartwatches seem to be safe in contrast to other PEDs such as the Microsoft surface pen or Airpods Pro case with high 1mT volumes and maximal distances with regards to CIED interaction.

Foldable Market Expands with Samsung, Microsoft Offerings

Foldable Market Expands with Samsung, Microsoft Offerings

RF-Dial: Rigid Motion Tracking and Touch Gesture Detection for Interaction via RFID Tags

With the rising of demands for novel human-computer interaction approaches in the 2D plane, a number of intelligent devices come into being. For example, Microsoft Surface Dial supports simple clicks and rotations for the interaction with computer. However, these approaches are dedicated devices, and they might require batteries or have limited functions. In this paper, we propose RF-Dial to realize a light-weight, battery-free and functional 2D human-computer interaction solution via commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) passive RFID tags. What RF-Dial shines is that it can easily turn an ordinary object, e.g., a board eraser, into an intelligent interaction device. By deploying a tag array on the side face of the object together with a dipole tag on the top face, RF-Dial cannot only track the rigid motion of the object but also detect the touch gesture of a user on the surface of the object, including translation, rotation, click, press and hold, and swipe. To do the motion tracking, RF-Dial builds a phase-based model that captures the translation and the rotation of the tagged object simultaneously, by jointly exploiting the information of phase variations and the topology of the tag array. To detect the touch gesture, RF-Dial builds an RSSI-based model that uses the impact of the touching finger on the tag antenna’s impedance to estimate the touch position in real time, which is robust to environmental factors like position or orientation. We implemented a prototype of RF-Dial with commodity RFID devices. Extensive experiments show that RF-Dial achieves an accurate rigid motion tracking, with a small error of 0.6cm for the translation tracking, and a small error of 1.9 degrees for the rotation estimation. Besides, RF-Dial can also detect the touch gesture accurately, as the 90 percent of touch position errors are less than 2.09mm.

Active voice authentication

Active authentication refers to a new mode of identity verification in which biometric indicators are continuously tested to provide real-time or near real-time monitoring of an authorized access to a service or use of a device. This is in contrast to the conventional authentication systems where a single test in form of a verification token such as a password is performed. In active voice authentication, voice is the biometric modality. This paper describes an ensemble of techniques that make reliable speaker verification possible using unconventionally short voice test signals. These techniques include model adaptation and minimum verification error training that are tailored for the extremely short training and testing requirements. A database of 25 speakers is recorded for developing this system. In our off-line evaluation on this dataset, the system achieves an average windowed-based equal error rates of 3-4% depending on the model configuration, which is remarkable considering that only 1 second of voice data is used to make every single authentication decision. On the NIST SRE 2001 Dataset, the system provides a 3.88% absolute gain over i-vector when the duration of test segment is 1 second. A real-time demonstration system has been implemented on Microsoft Surface Pro.

Evaluation of Mobile Electronic Devices in Detecting Optic Disc and Visual Field Parameters in Patients with Glaucoma at a Tertiary Hospital in Northeastern Tanzania

Background: Glaucoma is a serious public health problem since it causes visual impairment impacting social, mental and physical health of an individual. Diagnosis and management of glaucoma continue to be a challenge due to few qualified personnel and high cost of the equipment. The use of portable Eye Examination Kit such as Smartphone and tablets can be used in glaucoma screening for taking high-resolution fundus photos for optic disc and visual field parameters, respectively. This study was conducted to evaluate the applicability of mobile electronic device to detect optic disc and visual field parameters for glaucoma in a resource limited setting. Objective: To evaluate the applicability of mobile electronic devices to detect optic disc and visual field parameters for glaucoma. Methodology: Across-sectional study was conducted at KCMC Eye department from October 2018 to June 2019. Study included 140 participants attending eye clinic of which 67 had glaucoma and 73 without glaucoma. Clinical and socio-demographic data were collected using a structured questionnaire and analysed using Stata 15. Glaucoma examination was made on the right eye and photo comparison made between those with and without glaucoma. PEEK Smartphone fundus photo examination was compared with the gold standard machine (Slit Lamp Biomicroscopy), Amsler grid chart installed on a tablet (Microsoft surface, internal storage 256 GB, 2013) and contrast sensitivity compared with Humphrey field analyser (i series, model 740117434, Carl Zeiss Meditec). Results: The kappa (k) agreement between Slit lump biomicroscopy fundus view image and PEEK Smartphone concerning the optic disc measurement was 0.92 with sensitivity and specificity of 90.32% (95% CI: 80.12 - 96.37) and 93.59% (95% CI: 85.67 - 97.89) with a p < 0.001 respectively. An agreement between Amsler grid and Humphrey Field Analyser was 0.67 with sensitivity of 33.33% (95% CI: 20.76 - 47.92) and specificity of 86.52% (95% CI: 77.63 - 92.83) with a p < 0.005. An agreement for contrast sensitivity and Humphrey Field Analyser was 0.51 with sensitivity of 48.91% (95% CI: 38.3 - 59.56) and specificity of 54.17% (95% CI: 39.17 - 68.63) and p value of 0.729. Conclusion: PEEK Smartphone fundus image specificity was almost in perfect agreement compared with Amsler grid and Contrast sensitivity. The PEEK Smartphone fundus view optic disc parameter for vertical cup to disc ratio has a potential to enhance detection of glaucoma and thus improve its management in resource-limited settings.

(Re) Defining the High-Power Field for Digital Pathology

Background: The microscope high-power field (HPF) is the cornerstone for histopathology diagnostic evaluation such as the quantification of mitotic figures, lymphocytes, and tumor grading. With traditional light microscopy, HPFs are typically evaluated by quantifying histologic events in 10 fields of view at × 400 magnification. In the era of digital pathology, new variables are introduced that may affect HPF evaluation. The aim of this study was to determine the parameters that influence HPF in whole slide images (WSIs). Materials and Methods: Glass slides scanned on various devices (Leica's Aperio GT450, AT2, and ScanScope XT; Philips UltraFast Scanner; Hamamatsu's Nanozoomer 2.0HT; and 3DHistech's P1000) were compared to acquired digital slides reviewed on each vendor's respective WSI viewer software (e.g., Aperio ImageScope, ImageScope DX, Philips IMS, 3DHistech CaseViewer, and Hamamatsu NDP. view) and an in-house developed vendor-agnostic viewer. WSIs were reviewed at “×40” equivalent HPF on different sized monitors with varying display resolutions (1900 × 1080–4500 × 3000) and aspect ratios (e.g., Food and Drug Administration [FDA]-cleared 27” Philips PS27QHDCR, FDA-cleared 24” Dell MR2416, 24” Hewlett Packard Z24n G2, and 28” Microsoft Surface Studio). Digital and microscopic HPF areas were calculated and compared. Results: A significant variation of HPF area occurred between differing monitor size and display resolutions with minor differences between WSI viewers. No differences were identified by scanner or WSIs scanned at different resolutions (e.g., 0.5, 0.25, 0.24, and 0.12 µm/pixel). Conclusion: Glass slide HPF at × 400 magnification with conventional light microscopy was not equivalent to “×40” digital HPF areas. Digital HPF quantification may vary due to differences in the tissue area displayed by monitor sizes, display resolutions, and WSI viewers but not by scanner or scanning resolution. These findings will need to be further clinically validated with potentially new digital metrics for evaluation.

Using videoconferencing to deliver anatomy teaching to medical students on clinical placements

Medical students are classically taught anatomy towards the start of their medical curriculum, typically in their first and second year of study. During this phase of training, most of the teaching hours are delivered on site at a higher education institution rather than a clinical setting. The number of hours of anatomy teaching delivery then tends to fall sharply as these students enter their ‘clinical phase’, where they are mainly taught in clinical healthcare settings. As the students are then dispersed across multiple sites, anatomy teaching delivery becomes more challenging. On occasion, students may be able to return to central anatomy facilities, but when this is not possible, technology enhanced learning (TEL) can become invaluable.In this article, we would like to share our pilot of using videoconferencing technology to co-deliver teaching sessions for students on clinical placement. We describe two examples of teaching sessions run using the ‘Microsoft Surface Hub’, linking between the clinical placement sites at Bristol Medical School and the Centre for Applied Anatomy. We hope by sharing our experience and showing the advantages of using this technology to bring the anatomy and clinical components together, whilst acknowledging its limitations, we will encourage others to trial new and innovative methods of exploring anatomy teaching delivery in the distributed medical education models seen during the clinical years of medical undergraduate training.

Executing Product Broadening Procedures for the Sustainability of an Innovation Organization - A Contextual Analysis of Microsoft Corporation

Started in 1975, with a view to develop and vend BASIC interpreter, today, Microsoftdevelop, produce, license, support and sell worldwide software, user-level electronics,personal computers, and allied services. The company is world-famous because of its bestsoftware products Windows operating systems, Office suits, IE and Edge. The company’snotable hardware pieces are Xbox and Microsoft Surface family touch-screen computers.The company is listed as the top software company by Forbes Global for many years. Fromits inception to date, the company is maintaining top ranking technology-wise, product-wise,service-wise, revenue-wise, and growth-wise. It is possible for the company to sustaingrowth because of the integration and implementation of product diversification strategy.Over the years the company transformed from just a developer and seller of interpreter toproducer &amp; marketer of wide variety of software-hardware products. This paper analyses thestrategies the company adopted and incorporated in diversifying product and services lineupto sustain growth and maintain market stability. It also analyses the relevance andacceptability of different Microsoft products, its customer base, and software market shareand near future strategies.

General radon gas knowledge test assessment for BCIT students

&#x0D; Background Vancouver is located in a generally low-radon hazard zone. However, other parts of British Columbia such as the BC Interior or Northern BC are classified as high-radon hazard zone (or zone 1) due to the geological composition of rocks and soils in those areas. Despite the significant health risks associated with radon gas exposure, many BC residents and people across Canada have little to no knowledge regarding the topic. Since Post-secondary schools, such as the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), are places where knowledge is distributed and shared to our societies, it is important to assess students’ general knowledge background regarding radon gas. The result can then be extrapolated to the general populations. Methods An electronic survey was conducted to determine whether students in the six schools at BCIT have different background knowledge level regarding radon gas. The survey also determines students’ radon background knowledge based on different geographic regions they reside. The survey was conducted in-person at three main locations across BCIT’s Burnaby campus. It was administered using Google Forms and distributed to participants on Microsoft Surface 2. Results The One-way ANOVA statistical analysis result indicated that there is a significant difference in mean radon survey scores among the six various BCIT schools(p=0.009). In addition, the Tukey Test revealed that students from the School of Health Science have an average radon survey score which is significantly different when compared to students from the School of Business. However, it was found that there is no significant difference in the mean radon survey scores between the School of Business and other schools at BCIT. Nonetheless, it was evident that the School of Health Science students had relatively higher radon survey scores and thus, were more knowledgeable regarding radon gas compared to students from the other five schools. When analyzing survey scores among students residing in various geographic regions, the test showed that there is no significant difference in mean radon survey scores among BCIT students living in various geographic locations(p=0.46). Conclusion Based on the result of the study, the result showed that there is a significant difference in radon gas knowledge among BCIT students who majored in different schools. The School of Health Science students were more knowledgeable regarding the topic of radon gas compared to students in other schools. Nonetheless, all BCIT students achieved an average radon survey score of less than five out of ten, which was considered a failure score (Less than five out of ten). This showed that most BCIT students had very limited knowledge regarding radon gas and there were very limited amount of educational initiatives or campaigns available for students at BCIT. BCIT’s student association is recommended to create educational sessions across campus to raise student awareness regarding radon gas. At the community level, governments and various agencies such as the BC Lung Association need to work together to create radon awareness campaigns across BC and the rest of Canada. In order to get a more accurate representation of the radon gas knowledge level among people in BC, more research studies need to be conducted in other schools or general population groups.&#x0D;

When You Can't Touch a Touch Screen.

AbstractA touch screen can be an intuitive interface method for many people. Mobile phones, tablets, and tablet computer combinations have made this technology part of daily use. Touchscreen technologies are common and present unique difficulties for individuals who require alternative access methods. Dedicated augmentative and alternative communication systems continue to offer a range of access methods, but it is also important to examine existing accessibility options from mainstream companies (e.g., Microsoft [Redmond, WA], Apple [Cupertino, CA]) and how current tools can be used to allow individuals to interact with touch screen technologies. An overview of current accessibility features available on popular mainstream devices (e.g., Microsoft Surface, Apple iPad) is provided along with discussion of alternative access methods for current technologies, future research directions, and the potential impact of speech recognition, virtual reality, and augmented reality for interfacing with multiple devices.

Vid2U: Facilitating Students’ Learning Through Video Annotation for Tablet Device

Electronic learning (e-learning) applications are widely used in the Higher-Education institutions to deliver and share learning contents among the students. However, most of the e-learning applications are developed for offline or online desktops. Mobile learning (m-learning) is introduced to allow learners to experience the learning opportunities via mobile devices such as handheld computers, MP3 players, notebooks, mobile phones, and tablets. Interactive video refers to a technique which allows users to have some interactions with the media instead of watching a static video. One of the many ways of making video having the interactive elements is through video annotation. Although the use of video annotation is quite common in learning, there are still needs for more efforts on designing annotation facilities for video management in mobile learning environment. Apart from that, the application of video annotation on mobile devices is also still in its infancy, especially for recent devices like iPad, Microsoft Surface, Samsung Galaxy Tab, and others. The objective of the proposed mobile learning application, Vid2U is to provide the flexibility of accessing and managing video materials at anywhere and anytime, making learning even more widely available. The Vid2U is equipped with many functions such as allowing students to view lecture videos and other video materials related to the course when absent from classes. Students can also add, edit, and delete their lecture notes based on the lecture videos. The mobile-based application also allows students to search video materials related to all courses taken by them. Experimental results obtained from surveys have shown that the Vid2U is able to provide better learning environment for the university learners, which lead to a deeper level of learning engagement.

Integrating Apple iPads into University Computing Courses

The use of mobile devices is becoming increasingly common in both society and in the K-12 environment. Products such as the Apple iPad and the Microsoft Surface, among others, have matured to a point where university faculty are striving to integrate this increasingly ubiquitous technology into the classroom and the curriculum. This paper represents a case study examining one attempt to integrate the use of tablets into five university-level computing courses during the 2015- 2016 academic year. The author used a set of iPads and accompanying classroom technology (e.g. Apple TV, keyboards) in an attempt to engage students and build their problem-solving and collaborative skills. Student feedback suggests that students were engaged, and the results for the iPad's impact on problem-solving and collaborative skills improved over the course of the year. A number of challenges were observed, including inadequate student knowledge of tablets, wireless connectivity issues, student resistance to the group learning afforded by the iPads, and keeping the tablets charged and clean. Future plans for the study intend to address the challenges uncovered, using student and instructor feedback as an impetus for future development. This paper serves as an experiential report designed to inform other faculty who may be looking into similar projects.

Using a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablet for mathematics support

This paper reviews the benefits of using a Microsoft Surface Pro tablet in a mathematics support setting. The context of its use is foregrounded and associated educational issues explored.

The Teardown: Microsoft Surface Book 'laptop'

The Teardown: Microsoft Surface Book 'laptop'

The portable P300 dialing system based on tablet and Emotiv Epoc headset.

A Brain-computer interface (BCI) is a novel communication system that translates brain signals into a control signal. Now with the appearance of the commercial EEG headsets and mobile smart platforms (tablet, smartphone), it is possible to develop the mobile BCI system, which can greatly improve the life quality of patients suffering from motor disease, such as amyotrophic lateral scleroses (ALS), multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy and head trauma. This study adopted a 14-channel Emotiv EPOC headset and Microsoft surface pro 3 to realize a dialing system, which was represented by 4×3 matrices of alphanumeric characters. The performance of the online portable dialing system based on P300 is satisfying. The average classification accuracy reaches 88.75±10.57% in lab and 73.75±16.94% in metro, while the information transfer rate (ITR) reaches 7.17±1.80 and 5.05±2.17 bits/min respectively. This means the commercial EEG headset and tablet has good prospect in developing real time BCI system in realistic environments.

Finger-based multitouch interface for performing 3D CAD operations

The area of multitouch interaction research is at its infancy. The commercial sector has seen an exponential growth in this area with ubiquitous products like Apple i-Phone, i-Pad, and Microsoft surface table. In spite of their popularity, developers are still finding it difficult to extend this novel interface to engineering applications such as computer aided design (CAD), due to insufficient understanding of the factors that affect the multitouch interface interaction when applied to CAD operations. The objective of this research is to (1) outline the key elements of the multitouch interface for CAD, (2) identify the factors affecting the performance of a multitouch enabled CAD modeling environment, and (3) lay a foundation for future research and highlight the directions for extending the multitouch interface for CAD and other engineering applications. To demonstrate specific results we have conducted mouse emulation experiments. We compared the performance of two finger touch-based interaction techniques (drag state finger touch and track state finger touch) and a standard mouse device for 3D CAD modeling operations. The results indicated that both the task completion time and error rates are statistically the same for both the finger touch-based techniques. However, the error concentration observed from the experiments revealed that for the edge selection tasks, the track state technique is more suited than the drag state technique. Both the finger touch-based techniques suffered from precise dimension control while executing the tasks. The inclusion of a grid on the design space for modeling purpose reduced user errors. The mouse device outperformed both the finger touch-based techniques and yielded statistically better results in terms of task completion time and error rates.

SurfaceSlide: A Multitouch Digital Pathology Platform

BackgroundDigital pathology provides a digital environment for the management and interpretation of pathological images and associated data. It is becoming increasing popular to use modern computer based tools and applications in pathological education, tissue based research and clinical diagnosis. Uptake of this new technology is stymied by its single user orientation and its prerequisite and cumbersome combination of mouse and keyboard for navigation and annotation.MethodologyIn this study we developed SurfaceSlide, a dedicated viewing platform which enables the navigation and annotation of gigapixel digitised pathological images using fingertip touch. SurfaceSlide was developed using the Microsoft Surface, a 30 inch multitouch tabletop computing platform. SurfaceSlide users can perform direct panning and zooming operations on digitised slide images. These images are downloaded onto the Microsoft Surface platform from a remote server on-demand. Users can also draw annotations and key in texts using an on-screen virtual keyboard. We also developed a smart caching protocol which caches the surrounding regions of a field of view in multi-resolutions thus providing a smooth and vivid user experience and reducing the delay for image downloading from the internet. We compared the usability of SurfaceSlide against Aperio ImageScope and PathXL online viewer.Conclusion SurfaceSlide is intuitive, fast and easy to use. SurfaceSlide represents the most direct, effective and intimate human–digital slide interaction experience. It is expected that SurfaceSlide will significantly enhance digital pathology tools and applications in education and clinical practice.

A comparative ergonomics study: Performing reading-based tasks on a large-scale tabletop vs. laptop

In certain newer computer applications, such as the Microsoft Surface ®, the system usually has a large screen and is horizontally placed. Accordingly, different ergonomic considerations must be addressed in these new applications. In this study, several ergonomic aspects of two typical systems were experimentally measured and compared: a large-scale tabletop (LST) with a 47-inch LCD screen vs. a 14-inch regular laptop. The measurements included user-preferred view area and field of view, brightness, background color design, reading and answering task completion time, as well as subjective indices to measure users’ comfort, fatigue, perceived easiness, perceived efficiency, and overall satisfaction. The results show that reading-based task performance and users’ subjective indices on an LST were significantly lower than on a laptop, whereas background color preference was similar. Relevance to industry: Future LST application designs must address these differences in order to improve effectiveness, efficiency, and user satisfaction.