HCI Professor Brad Myers, and his student Jake Wobbrock who are academic partners of Microsoft Research in Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science have been invited to participate in the Microsoft Research Tech Fair 2005. The event takes place Wed., April 27 at the National Digital Library Learning Center in the James Madison Building of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Myers says he and Wobbrock will be showcasing novel mobile, wireless, and user interface technologies, including "Pebbles," a large-scale research project that is investigating how handhelds such as PDAs and mobile phones can be used to enhance and augment interactions with PCs and everyday appliances. They've been working on automatically creating control panels on handhelds for items like video camcorders and copiers.

They will also be demonstrating EdgeWrite, a new text entry method designed for high tactility, physical stability, and compactness that offers low-cost accessibility solutions to people with motor impairments, including cerebral palsy and Parkinson's Disease, as well as others. EdgeWrite works on a variety of common input devices, such as handhelds, touchpads, joysticks, and trackballs.

They will also demonstrate Citrine, an application that improves the cut-copy-paste interaction technique on computers. It shows an example of the seamless integration of "intelligent interfaces" with current interaction techniques.

Myers said Microsoft has funded his work steadily since 1998. "We are frequently showing our work to Microsoft people and incorporating their feedback, so we have a pretty close connection," he said.