Microsoft Research’s 3D multi-touch Technology

Multi-touch interaction has always been a dream of the future. Movies like Ironman 2 and Minority Report, present 3D multi-touch systems as an advanced technology available only in the world of science fiction. But Microsoft Research is turning fantasy into reality. At the 2010 Computer-Human Interaction Conference MSR (Microsoft Research) revealed that it has been working on for about a year now that has been dubbed the “Pinch-the-Sky Dome”.

The Pinch-the-Sky Dome projects Omni-directional images in a dome that will enclose the user. The user can navigate through the virtual space with multi-touch gestures. This system uses an infrared

Download Official Microsoft Brilliant Black Skin for Windows Media Player

Here is an official Microsoft skin for Windows Media Player. Its called "Brilliant Black". Actually this skin is a part of Microsoft Touch Pack for UMPC OEM (Ultra Mobile Personal Computer, Codenamed Origami).

It works in Windows XP and Vista and Windows 7 too. You can use it in WMP 9 and higher versions.

Just download the ZIP file, extract it and double click on "Brilliant Black.wmz" file. It'll automatically install and apply the skin.

Download it from here: mediafire.com

Different Video formats - Which player is best to run it ?

Every one likes to watch movies and video on computer/PC. But unfortunately today a large number of video formats are available in market ranging from .wmv , .avi , .mov , .divx , .mp4 , .mkv , .mpg , .ts , .vob , .dat , .rm , .rmvb , .flv and so on.... and for smooth running of video, a good combination of media player is quite important.

Again the choice becomes more complicated when, we have to deal with Media Players, today there are too many varieties of Media Players available some of them are paid and some of them are freeware or open source. So, what is the perfect combination of video format and player to play a video smoothly, and also at the same time should not use much CPU and RAM so that PC don't become slow.

One of the most important thing we observe that the built in Media Player in Windows Operating System, i.e. Windows Media Player only supports very few number of formats such as .wmv and .mpg and so on. If you want to play other format of videos then, you will require to download codec, which will be heavy on your pocket as these are not available free.
And also you would have listened about codec packs which are available freely, but again there are so many codec packs, you will think which one is the best..??

Well coming to point, according to my experience on Windows Vista OS, the well know codec pack " Vista Codec Pack " is the best solution if you love to play video in Window Media Player . Install the latest version of it and enjoy playback on Window Media Player. If you are using 64-bit version of Vista then along this codec pack you will need to install " Vista Codecs x64 components " as this will resolve the issue of two version of Window Media Player namely x86 and x64 version. I opted for this codec pack over other because this pack also gives support for Thumbnail creation in Windows Explorer which gives awesome look.

In next article I will tell about the best Free Media Players to deal with different kind of video formats, if you don't like to use Windows Media Media Player.

SUPER 2009 Video Converter Released

It’s a new year, and with that comes all kinds of great new software releases and updates. SUPER Video converter is a favorite of mine and for others too, and I wanted to make sure everyone knows that a new version was released with better media support and bug fixes. Here’s a more detailed list of what’s new:

• Added support to encode, play and render WMV9 and WVC1 with the ASF, AVI, MKV, WMV and Zune containers
• Added support to encode, play and render WMA3 with the ASF, AVI, MKV, WMV and Zune containers
• Added Bframe support when using the WMV9/WVC1 video codecs
• Added OGG (Audio Only) Output Container, rename the old OGG(Video, Audio) to OGM(Video, Audio)
• Added support to encode, play and render vorbis (very high quality) with the OGG (Audio Only) container
• Added support to encode, play and render FLAC (lossless) with the MKV, OGM, OGG containers
• Added H.264 Profile/Level/Ref CheckBox to tweak 3GP/3G2, iPod, Zune, PSP, PS3, TS and M2TS containers
• Fixed a long list of small bug fixes and coding enhancements

The new version still has the same interface, which for many computer users is a bit overwhelming.

Once you start actually using the program, however, it works great. And the fact that SUPER is free makes it pretty hard to beat. The one thing I wish they would fix is their unbelievably awful website that takes five minutes just to find the download link, and the download page changes frequently making it impossible to link directly to it. After a quick search on Google, however, I found this download mirror for you guys.

SUPER Video Converter Homepage