Dec 11, 2010 11:54 GMT  ·  By

2010 has been a landmark year for Microsoft in terms of the evolution of natural user interfaces and the integration of NUI interaction models in more and more products, establishing the base for widespread, mainstream usage.

NUIs are slowly becoming pervasive, not just because of the Redmond company, of course, but it’s clear that the interaction freedom delivered by touch, gesture and voice far surpasses the limitations of the mouse, keyboards, gaming controllers, etc.

Expect natural user interfaces to become increasingly prominent in 2011 as uptake of NUI-capable products will grow. And in this regard, also expect the impact they have on users to increase.

All the while, bear in mind that the world is only now seeing the debut of NUI human-computer interaction models, and that this will be an extremely interesting journey for the years to come.

Kinect for Xbox 360 debuts

“Kinect for Xbox 360 launched worldwide in November and promptly sold 2.5 million units. Perhaps the most ambitious realization of the natural user interface to date, Kinect lets you use your voice and body to interact with your favorite games, movies and music, literally turning you into the controller,” Microsoft stated.

What should Microsoft do next? Well, it’s clear that Kinect has to evolve beyond Xbox. And what better platform for the sensor to call home next, than Windows?

Windows Phone 7

“In November, Windows Phone 7 went on sale, and its seamless touch and speech experiences have won positive reviews from users and professional reviewers alike,” the company revealed.

What should Microsoft do next? Sometime users might not want smudged screens on their devices. Scenarios in which customers gesture to or with their Windows Phone devices should also be taken into consideration by the software giant.

Bing voice search

“Late last year, Bing launched Bing for Mobile with voice search, so you can instantly search and accomplish tasks using your voice. Today, 1 out of every 5 Bing for Mobile searches are done using voice search, marking strong adoption in its first year of availability. The feature is available on the latest Windows Phones, iPhones and Android phones,” Microsoft said.

What should Microsoft do next? Why not take it to the next level? Go beyond searching with Bing to the entire browsing experience. Let users enter URLs, navigate back and forth between pages or tabs, scroll, etc. using voice commands.

Why not allow users to take advantage of text-to-speech for messages that they can either send to friends or post on Twitter?

Tellme technologies

“In July, Speech Technology Magazine named Microsoft Tellme the top speech engine for 2010,” Microsoft revealed.

“Today, more than 2 million Ford vehicles are equipped with Ford SYNC, which is powered by Microsoft Tellme technologies.”

“Top companies such as Avis, Orbitz and E*TRADE use the Microsoft Tellme Interactive Voice Response (IVR) service to enable self-service capabilities for their callers,” the company added.

What should Microsoft do next? More devices, new computing paradigms. The software giant has already offered details of concepts such as entire rooms becoming ‘the computer.’

And just as speech can be used in automotive infotainment scenarios, it could also be leveraged to control larger environments. Kinect for Xbox 360 is certainly a great step forward in this regard.

Office Mini Translator

“More than 750 million people worldwide use Microsoft Office, and among the new features in Office 2010 is Mini Translator, an on-the-fly translator.

Office Mini Translator lets you translate single words or many paragraphs simply by hovering over the text with your mouse. You also can speak the text to the Mini Translator using Microsoft Tellme’s text-to-speech (TTS) engine,” the company said.

What should Microsoft do next? Take translation outside documents, outside the device – translating the world, text and speech.

Mobile devices come with cameras and microphones that can be put to good use. Imagine using your phone to translate the instructions of a product in another language by simply pointing the camera to the text.

Imagine being able to use your Tablet PC in order to translate speech into either text or voice on the spot.

Exchange Server 2010 includes Voicemail Preview

Exchange is the most widely used communications technology in business today, and Exchange Server 2010 uses Microsoft Tellme technology to bring voice mail preview to everyone,” the Redmond company revealed.

“With it you can preview voicemails directly in Outlook via your PC, phone and browser. The preview provides a text snapshot of voicemails and also flags urgent messages or those requiring action.”

What should Microsoft do next? Again, why limit this to Exchange and Outlook? Why not have users easily convert audio to text in a variety of scenarios, from a quote in a video to and instant messaging conversation involving a shopping list?

Windows 7

And let’s not forget Windows 7. Launched in October 2009, the latest iteration of Windows started to truly make an impact in 2010, as adoption and usage grew extremely rapidly.

With the successor of Windows Vista, the software giant not only introduced enhanced NUI capabilities by default from multi-touch to speech, but also delivered a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) designed to make it as simple as possible for developers to build apps that leverage natural user interfaces, especially around touch.

What should Microsoft do next? How about tailoring the Windows UI to slates. Sure, Windows 7’s graphical user interface is multi-touch friendly, I’ve tried it myself. But users still need to “click” in order to make their way around the operating system.

This needs to change. Customers that are using their fingers should be able to touch the OS’s UI and not replicate mouse interaction. What’s the difference? Think of Aero vs. Metro.

“What we’re seeing today is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential for NUI. As more people become accustomed to using their voices, fingers and gestures to interact with computers and gadgets, the technologies are poised for widespread use, and the implications for the home, for entertainment and for business are tremendous,” Microsoft promised.