Event Details:

Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina
1380 Harbor Island Drive · San Diego, California 92101, Phone: (619) 291-2900
Wednesday, February 20
Afternoon to 5 PM
Cost: Free and open to the public

Thanks, Ram.

These Include..

Jefferson Y. Han: The Hands-on Computer:If a screen is large enough, four or five people can work at it together, rearranging blueprints, say, or editing photos—but not with a mouse. The answer, which Han demonstrates on his 3 x 8-ft. Media Wall, is multitouch input.

Microsoft Surface:This tabletop computer uses “multitouch” technology to let several users, employing their fingers, manipulate images and other data right on the screen—no keyboard or mouse needed.

Apple Iphone:Of course, you’ve heard about this phone. But have you used it? The best way to understand why Apple’s iPhone has sent shockwaves through the cellphone industry is simply to check your voice mail with it.

More Info Here

    Guests And The Public To Experience Hands-On Interaction With Digital
    Content Through Product's Unique Capabilities

    Renowned Artist, Charles Pachter to Demonstrate Surface's Interactive
    Painting Feature with Creation of Original Artwork

    TORONTO, Sept. 14 /CNW/ - The Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel will host
live demonstrations of Microsoft Surface, a revolutionary new surface
computing product that was recently unveiled to major fanfare. For one day
only, Saturday, September 15, from 11AM to 4PM, guests and the public can
experience Microsoft Surface - a 30-inch display in a table-like form factor
that recognizes natural gestures, touch and physical objects, enabling
hands-on, interaction with digital content such as photos, music and maps.
    Microsoft Surface will roll out in Sheraton Hotels within the U.S. and
Canada starting late spring 2008, and will offer Sheraton guests an array of
capabilities to enhance their stay, which could include browsing and listening
to music, creating playlists, sending photos home, downloading books and even
ordering food and drinks.



    <<
               GREAT PHOTO OPPORTUNITIES OF MICROSOFT SURFACE
               ----------------------------------------------
        INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITIES/REACTION WITH GUESTS AND THE PUBLIC
        -----------------------------------------------------------

    WHAT:     Sheraton Hosts Public Look at Microsoft Surface

    WHEN:     Saturday, September 15th from 11AM to 4PM

    WHERE:    Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, 123 Queen Street West

              For more information on Microsoft Surface, visit
              www.surface.com
    >>

For further information: Cynthia Bond, Dan Young, Starwood Canada, (416)
947-4827, (416) 947-4955 ext.4458, cynthia.bond@starwoodhotels.com,
dan.young@starwoodhotels.com

After the huge success of their first Conference the folks at Tangible and Embedded Interaction Conference are inviting Applications to show of your research in Embedded Interaction Tecniques at TEI 2008 that will be held in the B-IT Center in Bonn, Germany. The conference will take place between the 18th and 21st February 2008.

From TEI site:

Call for Participation

After the big success of TEI’07 we are now organizing TEI’08, the second international conference dedicated to research in tangible and embedded interaction. Work addressing HCI issues, design, use context, tools and technologies, as well as interactive art works are all welcome, including especially interdisciplinary submissions across these themes. We anticipate that papers will be published through the ACM Digital Library (confirmation will follow soon).

With technological advances, computing has progressively moved beyond the desktop into new physical and social contexts. As physical artifacts gain new computational behaviors, they become reprogrammable, customizable, repurposable, and interoperable in rich ecologies and diverse contexts. They also become more complex, and require intense design effort in order to be functional, usable, and enjoyable. Designing such systems requires interdisciplinary thinking. Their creation must not only encompass software, electronics, and mechanics, but also the system’s physical form and behavior, its social and physical milieu, and beyond.

Research on tangible and embedded interaction has gained substantial visibility and activity over the past decade and it has worn many names, including tangible interfaces, graspable interfaces, physical computing, tangible interaction, IT product design, appliance design, interactive spaces, etc.; and been associated with larger research areas, including mixed, virtual, and augmented reality, and ubiquitous and pervasive computing.

The conference brings together this new field, providing a meeting ground for the diverse communities of research and practice involved with tangibles — from computing, hardware, and sensor technology, to HCI, interaction design, and CSCW, to product and industrial design and interactive arts. We invite submissions from all of these perspectives, be they theoretical, conceptual, technical, applied, or artistic. The conference is designed to provide appropriate presentation forms for different types of contributions including talks, interactive exhibits, demos or performances, and posters. All submission types will be included in the proceedings as papers and will be integrated within the single-track conference. Interdisciplinary submissions are particularly welcome.
Topics for Submission

Authors are invited to submit high-quality papers about original research that contributes to advancing the field. Appropriate topics include but are not limited to:

* Case studies and evaluations of working deployments
* Analysis of key challenges, proposals of research agenda
* Relation of tangible and embedded interaction to other paradigms
* Programming paradigms and tools, toolkits, software architectures
* Novel interactive uses of sensors+actuators, electronics+mechatronics
* Design guidelines, methods, and processes
* Novel appl. areas, innovative solutions/systems and industrial apps
* Theoretical foundations, frameworks, and concepts
* Philosophical, ethical & social implications
* Interfaces specific in form and context to particular cultures
* Usability and enjoyment
* Advantages of these kinds of systems, weaknesses, affordances
* Learning from the role of physicality in everyday environments
* Embodied interaction, movement, and choreography of interaction
* Role of physicality for human perception, cognition and experience
* Teaching experiences, lessons learned, and best practices
* Standardization, production, and business applications

Important Dates and Deadlines

Paper submission deadline — October 5, 2007

Author notification deadline — November 23, 2007

Camera-ready copy deadline — December 14, 2007

Early registration deadline — December 21, 2007

Conference dates — February 18-21, 2008

UPDATE:-
The conference submission system is now available at the following link:
http://edas.info/newPaper.php?c=5561&

More Information Can be found here

More than ever before, WorldWide Partner Conference was a serious demo fest with lots of cool technology shown off during the keynotes. Silverlight, Photosyth, Seadragon, Surface and more. Hats off to the WPC folks for showing off our innovations to an audience that sometimes only really gets to see (and sell) our business software. I already have lots of interest from UK Partners on Silverlight and Surface in particular. Needless to say I’ll need one of the latter for research purposes Check ‘em out

Microsoft Surface
Allison Watson picked her favorite demos of the week, including Microsoft Surface. Learn more about Surface, the first surface computing platform.

Live Labs Photosynth (and SeaDragon)
Watch how a three-dimensional image is created from two-dimensional photos. See photos from multiple angles and seamlessly zoom in or out of a photograph that’s gigapixels in size.

Windows Live for Windows Mobile
See some of the latest devices and services for mobility. Learn how to stay connected and quickly find local resources and data using Windows Live Search.

Microsoft RoundTable
Watch Allison Watson conduct a conference with partners from around the world with 360-degree cameras that can track any speaker in the room.

Microsoft Dynamics Live CRM
See a sneak preview of the upcoming Microsoft Dynamics Live CRM offering that will deliver a flexible and familiar user experience, through Microsoft Outlook, or a Web browser, with rich configuration and customization capabilities.

Microsoft Silverlight
See how the latest support program for interactive high-quality video and photo, can be used to intuitively organize and preview new media.

Windows Server 2008

Windows Automotive
See how the Ford Sync works, demonstrating some of the latest technology coming out of the Windows Automotive Business Unit.

Via: Steve C

The conference is also a big scene for networking of the face-to-face kind. Colorful, contemporary lounges will be filled with 13,000 attendees from more than 130 countries who are eager to build new partnerships that help them grow their businesses.

Via: DenverPost
Check out these video highlights.