We know that our earth is round and we thank early Greek philosophers and Pythagoras to enlighten us about that fact. But today its time to thank Microsoft for unveiling the Sphere! Putting an end to all the speculations surrounding its form and function, its time to believe that spherical display screens is here to stay. It may be some time before you can actually place one on your worktable to blog, but today Sphere will be unveiled at the annual Microsoft Research Faculty. Making it clearer that many surfaces can be used as displays, the Sphere uses an internal projection and vision system to bring a spherical computer display to life. Users can touch the surface with multiple fingers and hands to manipulate photos, play games, spin a virtual globe, or watch 360-degree videos. Microsoft researchers came up with advanced algorithms to translate images originally intended for a flat computer screen so that they appear properly on the rounded globe, on the fly. They also added an infrared system that can sense when hands or objects are placed on the sphere, to let people interact.

In the spherical version of the classic Pong arcade game, users can place their hands on the surface to direct bouncing balls around the sphere. Photos too can be resized or dragged around the sphere in real time, or zapped quickly to someone on the other side of the sphere by pressing a palm against the surface. Also another application lets people dip their fingers in virtual paint and press against the static globe as the digital canvas spins like a potter’s wheel.

Via Stufftv/Engadget