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T. Scott SaponasI am a Researcher in the Computational User Experiences (CUE) group at Microsoft Research. My general research interests are Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp). More specifically, I spend most of my time creating new human-computer input and output techniques. The broad goal of my work is enabling computing to aid people throughout every aspect of their lives. My focus toward this goal is the concept of Always-Available Computing: the idea that computing can and should be at our fingertips no matter where we are or what we are doing.
In 2010 I completed my PhD in the Computer Science & Engineering department at the University of Washington where I was advised by Professor James Landay and Dr. Desney Tan. In my dissertation work, I created new human-computer interfaces by exploring techniques to harness the untapped bandwidth of the human body for physiological interfaces to computing. The focus of my work in this area has been muscle-computer interfaces. This work has led to many publications and coverage by media outlets including being honored as one of Technology Review's 2010 Young Innovators Under 35.
contact information
T. Scott Saponas, Ph.D.
Researcher
Microsoft Research
ssaponas@microsoft.com
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
United States of America
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April 2nd, 2012Louis Kratz, an awesome intern from summer 2011, will be presenting our paper Making Gestural Input from Arm-Worn Inertial Sensors More Practical at CHI 2012 in Austin, Texas. Our paper demonstrates two new techniques for detecting and recognizing arm gestures from arm-worn accelerometer and gyroscope sensors. First, we present a gesture detection method whose computational complexity does not depend on the duration of the gesture. Second, we describe a novel method for recognizing gestures with only a single example from a new user. -
February 12th, 2012Anne Eisenberg wrote an article on PocketTouch in the business section of this Sunday's New York Times. There is also an online version of the article.
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October 25th, 2011Dan Morris, Desney Tan, and I put together an article on Emerging Input Technologies for Always-Available Mobile Interaction. Our article outlines the idea of Always-Available interaction in mobile settings. We also provide a survey of input and output technologies that are relevant to this domain.
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October 18th, 2011I presented our PocketTouch paper at UIST 2011. In this work, Chris Harrison, Hrvoje Benko, and I tackle creating a capacitive-touch based input device that can work through fabrics. Our goal is to enable phones and other mobile devices to accept gesture and handwriting input without removing those devices from their pocket, bag, or case.
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August 25th, 2010I was honored as one of Technology Review's 2010 Young Innovators Under 35. Check out Tom Simonite's profile of my work and me. Also, check out Rob Knies's writeup about the five Microsoft Researchers included in this year's TR35 . -
August 20th, 2010I just physically turned in my dissertation. Check it out here. It is titled "Supporting Everyday Activities through Always-Available Mobile Computing" -
June 2010Desney Tan, Dan Morris and I were invited to write an article for XRDS (The ACM Magazine for Students). We wrote a short article entitled Interfaces on the go that discusses some of our recent work in always-available input techniques for mobile computing and the role of micro-interactions.
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May 13th, 2010After I complete my Ph.D. this summer, I will be starting as a Researcher in the Computational User Experiences (CUE) group within the VIBE area at Microsoft Research. -
April 22nd, 2010The PLAY AS LIFE gaming blog caught up with me at CHI 2010 to talk about muscle-computer interfaces and gaming. Check out their interview with me. -
March 2nd, 2010The New York Times Technology Blog, Gizmodo, Brier Dudley's Seattle Times Blog, TechCrunch, Xconomy, Seeking Alpha, gizmag and ars technica covered our presence at Microsoft Research's TechFest 2010. The Microsoft Research News Page also described our "Body Computing" work as a part of an article on "New, Natural User Interfaces." -
Jan 15th, 2009On Tuesday, April 13th at 11:30 AM, I will be presenting our note Making Muscle-Computer Interfaces More Practical in the Brains and Brawn session at CHI 2010 in Atlanta, GA. This note builds on our previous work in muscle-computer interfaces by tackling the challenges of creating sensing hardware suitable for mobile and off-desktop environments, electrodes that can be put on quickly without adhesives or gel, and gesture recognition techniques that require no new training or calibration after re-donning a muscle-sensing armband. -
October 28th, 2009Kate Greene of the MIT Technology Review wrote up an article about our work on Muscle-Computer Interfaces. She discusses our approach to muscle-sensing for computer input and our paper at UIST 2009.
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October 26th, 2009Following Johhny Lee's post to his Procrastineering Blog about the video figure (shown below) from our paper at UIST 2009, the following websites picked up the story: ACM TechNews, Engadget, Gizmodo, Joystiq, Kotaku, LiveScience, Makezine, Popular Science, Slashdot, and TechRadar. For a longer clip of the Guitar Hero demo, here is a video of me playing Air Guitar Hero. All versions on YouTube: mine, CHI, and TechFlash. -
September 25th, 2009We have a paper combining muscle sensing and the Microsoft Surface at the Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces 2009 conference. Check out our video to see our interaction techniques in action! -
August 19th, 2009Our work on Muscle-Computer Interfaces was mentioned in an article in Forbes Magazine by Lee Gomes. His article describes the importance of the keyboard and mouse in our everyday lives and some of the alternative input approaches researchers have explored. -
July 25th, 2009Come to UIST 2009 in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia and see me present our paper on Muscle-Computer Interfaces. In our latest work, we are exploring directly using muscles for input in situations (such as carrying objects) where normal physical input devices are inconvient or impossible to use. I will also be co-presenting a Tech Note on our new work prototyping new methods for Tongue-Computer Input.
Check out the video below. It is an excerpt from our talk on a new tongue-based input technique. It shows one of our participants playing tetris with a wired version of our device. We also have demonstrated the ability to control a motorized chair from our tongue input device. Our latest version of the device is a wireless orthodontic-like retainer.
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August 18th, 2008Dr. Bill Crounse, senior director of worldwide health at Microsoft, stopped by Microsoft Research and interviewed several people, including me, about our current research. He wrote and spoke about our work on Muscle-Computer Input in his Health Blog and on Microsoft's Channel 10. -
April 24th, 2008New Scientist and the blogosphere recently covered our work on Muscle-Computer Input. -
Feb 1st, 2008On Tuesday April 8, come see me present my paper with Desney Tan, Dan Morris, & Ravin Balakrishnan on Muscle-Computer Interfaces at CHI in Florence, Italy. Check out the entire CHI Schedule.