Microsoft keynote about active pen and gesture control at SID 2016

May 26, 2016

At SID 2016 DisplayWeek, Microsoft’s Distinguished Scientist, Mr. Steve Bathiche gave a keynote presentation about the advanced user interface technologies they are working on and his vision for the future.

Steve showed a video of their improvement of the active pen for Surface with less and less latency. Then he said, “Now it feels like real paper; sounds like real paper too!”

Figure: Microsoft’s Steve Bathiche keynote at SID 2016.

Microsft Steve keynote SID 2016

Photo by: Touch Display Research

Active pen input is very useful in education, certain language input, medical, finance, industry applications, and content creation. In the recently published “Active Pen 2016 Report (Second Edition),” Touch Display Research Inc., a market research and consulting firm, analyzes more than thirteen active pen technologies. Touch Display Research forecasts active pen writing module (includes pen sensor, pen and controller IC) revenue will reach $6.1 billion in 2021, from $2.9 billion in 2016.

Figure 2. Active pen module market forecast

Active pen market forecast 2016

Source: Touch Display Research, Active pen 2016 report

Thanks for reading,

Dr. Jennifer Colegrove and team