Microsoft is committed to the evolution of Natural User Interfaces, until they become pervasive across all computing products. There are examples today of the efforts from the software giant that are already producing results. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. NUIs are in their infancy, and Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer sees the role of the underlying operating system critical in ensuring that users will be able to take advantage of a natural interaction model with computers. On a recent visit to Poland, Ballmer revealed in an interview with Onet that he saw platforms in a decade carrying a much heavier load than operating systems today.

“Operating systems 10 years from now are going to have to do a lot more than operating systems are doing today. It's the operating system that has to provide the technology that recognizes your voice, it's the operating system that provides the technology that has to translate what you said, and what you meant into a set of instructions that other programs can work on. A lot of new technologies have to go into the operating systems,” he stated.

Microsoft has already made the first steps toward a world in which natural user interfaces will become ubiquitous. In 2008, the company introduced Microsoft Surface, an interaction model based on multi-touch, gesture and object recognition. October 22, 2009 will see the advent of Windows 7, an operating system that ships with touch capabilities by default, and which only requires touch-capable hardware. The software giant is also producing Project Natal, a new way to interact with Xbox 360 consoles.

“We have some big long term goals. I really want computers to work naturally. The way people want and expect them to work. To understand what they mean. Kind of an artificial intelligence. To recognize their voice, their gestures. I want to add naturalness to the user interface and PCs, phones and TVs,” Ballmer stated.