Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Bridging the Gap between Research and Product

I've been pouring over my web site stats for past few hours and I must confess that I'm excited about the amount of traffic that my website has received lately. My website usually recieves around 100 unique visitors a day, but every so often an article comes up that boosts the number of visits significantly.

In the graph above you see a blip of about 1'000 visitors a day during the publishing of my article to the tech community (i.e. Slashdot, Engadget). A bigger blip of 2'000 visitors a day occured when my research was published in the PC Gamer magazine in the UK. Another blip appeared when a related article of my research was posted on the Associated Press, Yahoo! News and CNN. The latest posts from popular web sites such as Digg and The Inquirer have increased the number of visits to my site more than 100 fold to around 12'000 visits a day.

The thing I find most exciting about this is that my research is having an impact on the general public and not just the research community. One of my tasks as an inventor is to try to bridge the gap between research and things that people use in their everyday lives. The focus is less on getting papers published and more on having a direct impact on the kinds of technologies that we use in everyday life.

That's not to say that digital tables will replace desktop computers. Rather, they will be a tool that can be used with existing technologies to enhance collaboration in everyday face to face encounters.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't know where else to ask this, but are the two chaps that get a mention in the googleearth/warcraftIII video New Zealanders? Their accents sound like they are.

Represent New Zealand!

Anonymous said...

Hello Edward:

Just say the interactive table video on Google Video. I must say, very impressive. I was wondering if you are going to be mass producing these and what will be a price range. This is something I have wanted for a long time. Also what operating system are you running with this?

Great job,
Richard j Smith
La Crosse, Wisconsin

Anonymous said...

I think that your research is very interestiong, and seems to work, but I would like to know why you are conducting research on a tabletop display, when this is not something anyone will be able to afford for quite some time. Also, it seems that the learning curve is high, as from watching your video, you had to input exact commands for the system to know what you wanted that would have to be memorized before use. Have you experimented with a kind of free speech approach so that it can pick up what you ned without this?

Anonymous said...

Hi Edward,

Very cool work. I wish you the best in your ventures. When I watched Minority Report for the first time, I thought their Hollywood concept of hand-gestured navigation was great, but also thought, "only in the movies..." I'm glad there are great minds out there like yours that can make things like this a reality.

Dean
www.envador.com

Anonymous said...

Just dropping you a line.

Saw your research for your Phd. on the google videos. Found it
extremely interesting. (More interesting them my senior thesis, it was
a scorcher on dewatering of sandy silty clay soil) Anyway, keep up
the good work.

JH

Anonymous said...

Dr. Mr. Tse

Your video showed one of the most fresh and dynamic inventions I have seen in a long time. I wanted to let you know that its remarkable.

Xerian

Edward Tse said...

Sir, i must salute you.

I was strolling through my World of Warcraft guild's forums and someone happened to post a link of your video concerning Multi User Multimodal Tabletop Interaction.

Though it is probably meant to be used by a company for something serious, the thought of playing PC games with something like what you have made send shivers down my spine.

Have my children, and God bless the pioneers such as yourself.

jeremy jackson