 With Microsoft looking to bring "console quality" streaming to phones and tablets with Project xCloud, how will the company achieve that when touch controls are still pretty bad? It seems the company is looking to bring physical controllers to mobile devices to offset this problem, according to these Microsoft Research papers. The research paper documents some of the popular solutions to gaming via a touch screen while hailing the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation Portable (PSP) for circumventing touch-based control limitations with full joysticks and buttons. Microsoft built the prototypes out of foam and then had them 3D printed, based on conceptual renders. The work was carried out quite a while ago, back in 2014, but it seems Microsoft Research has resurfaced their efforts recently, noting the recent success of the Nintendo Switch. While this research may be far away from turning into an actual product, it's pretty imperative that Microsoft takes a serious role in exploring how it can improve the way Xbox games will handle on a mobile device to help take Project xCloud mainstream. Touch-based inputs have always felt like a half-way solution and will feel even more like one when they come up against games designed from the ground-up for responsive, tactile inputs. Learn more by visiting OUR FORUM.  The FDA cleared the Microsoft HoloLens for 510(k) clearance to the OpenSight Augmented Reality System. OpenSight is the first AR (augmented reality) application for use in “pre-operative surgical planning.” As outlined in a press release by Novarad, OpenSight uses 2D, 3D, and 4D images overlayed onto patients’ bodies to provide a visual guide on what doctors may encounter internally during surgery. OpenSight uses HoloLens because the headset allows a better experience, allowing to simultaneously visualize 3D patient images in AR and the actual patient. OpenSight aims to improve surgical planning and decrease the amount of time spent in the operating room. Here’s a look at what a doctor would see when using HoloLens with OpenSight. Dr. Wendell Gibby, MD, Novarad CEO, and co-creator of OpenSight, believes that FDA approval will help doctors be better prepared for surgery and be more successful in surgical procedures, reducing the risk of serious complications for the patient. Additionally, OpenSight allows for a multi-user experience using multiple HoloLens headsets that can help create a better environment for teaching and training new doctors. A teaching version of the software is also available for medical students to perform virtual dissections of cadavers. Learn more at OUR FORUM.  Microsoft announced today that Windows Defender is the first antivirus to gain the ability to run inside a sandbox environment. In software design, a "sandbox" is a security mechanism that works by separating a process inside a tightly controlled area of the operating system that gives that process access to limited disk and memory resources. The idea is to prevent bugs and exploit code from spreading from one process to another, or to the underlying OS. A sandbox escape is one of the most complex pieces of exploitation malware, or a hacker can perform, and running programs inside sandboxed environments are considered an optimal security measure and good software architecture. Microsoft says it started working on porting Windows Defender to a sandbox environment after "security researchers both inside and outside of Microsoft have previously identified ways that an attacker can take advantage of vulnerabilities in Windows Defender Antivirus's content parsers that could enable arbitrary code execution." The most infamous of these researchers is Google's Tavis Ormandy, who identified several of these types of vulnerabilities, including one that he labeled "crazy bad." During many of his bug reports, Ormandy had privately and publicly recommended that Microsoft move Windows Defender to a sandbox and prevent attackers from using it as a way to take over Windows PCs. Learn more by navigating to OUR FORUM. |
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