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Throughout the history of computers

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we've been striving
to shorten the gap between us

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and digital information,

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the gap between our physical world

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and the world in the screen

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where our imagination can go wild.

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And this gap has become shorter,

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shorter, and even shorter,

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and now this gap is shortened down

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to less than a millimeter,

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the thickness of a touch-screen glass,

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and the power of computing

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has become accessible to everyone.

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But I wondered, what if there
could be no boundary at all?

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I started to imagine
what this would look like.

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First, I created this tool

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which penetrates into the digital space,

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so when you press it hard on the screen,

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it transfers its physical
body into pixels.

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Designers can materialize their ideas

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directly in 3D,

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and surgeons can practice
on virtual organs

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underneath the screen.

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So with this tool, this
boundary has been broken.

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But our two hands still
remain outside the screen.

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How can you reach inside and interact

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with the digital information

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using the full dexterity of our hands?

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At Microsoft Applied Sciences,

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along with my mentor Cati Boulanger,

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I redesigned the computer

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and turned a little space
above the keyboard

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into a digital workspace.

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By combining a transparent
display and depth cameras

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for sensing your fingers and face,

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now you can lift up your hands
from the keyboard

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and reach inside this 3D space

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and grab pixels with your bare hands.

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(Applause)

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Because windows and files have
a position in the real space,

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selecting them is as easy
as grabbing a book off your shelf.

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Then you can flip through this book

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while highlighting the lines, words

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on the virtual touch pad
below each floating window.

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Architects can stretch
or rotate the models

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with their two hands directly.

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So in these examples,

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we are reaching into the digital world.

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But how about reversing its role

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and having the digital
information reach us instead?

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I'm sure many of us
have had the experience

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of buying and returning items online.

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But now you don't have to worry about it.

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What I got here is an online
augmented fitting room.

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This is a view that you get from

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head-mounted or see-through display

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when the system understands
the geometry of your body.

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Taking this idea further,
I started to think,

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instead of just seeing
these pixels in our space,

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how can we make it physical

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so that we can touch and feel it?

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What would such a future look like?

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At MIT Media Lab,
along with my advisor Hiroshi Ishii

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and my collaborator Rehmi Post,

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we created this one physical pixel.

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Well, in this case, this spherical magnet

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acts like a 3D pixel in our space,

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which means that both computers and people

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can move this object to anywhere

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within this little 3D space.

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What we did was essentially
canceling gravity

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and controlling the movement by combining

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magnetic levitation
and mechanical actuation

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and sensing technologies.

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And by digitally programming the object,

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we are liberating
the object from constraints

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of time and space, which means that now,

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human motions can be
recorded and played back

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and left permanently
in the physical world.

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So choreography can be taught
physically over distance

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and Michael Jordan's famous
shooting can be replicated

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over and over as a physical reality.

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Students can use this as a tool

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to learn about the complex concepts

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such as planetary motion, physics,

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and unlike computer screens or textbooks,

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this is a real, tangible experience

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that you can touch and feel,
and it's very powerful.

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And what's more exciting

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than just turning what's currently
in the computer physical

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is to start imagining
how programming the world

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will alter even our daily
physical activities.

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(Laughter)

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As you can see, the digital information

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will not just show us something

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but it will start directly acting upon us

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as a part of our physical surroundings

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without disconnecting
ourselves from our world.

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Today, we started by talking
about the boundary,

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but if we remove this boundary,

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the only boundary left is our imagination.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)