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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 Carrie Blanche,
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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 to 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 touchpad 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 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 Remy 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 with 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 objecting 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 dunks 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 the planetary motion, physics,
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and on my 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)