Augmented reality seems to be all the rage this week: Microsoft earlier today got in touch to give us the heads up on some technology it’s been working on — its designs for how to make a user’s experience of a location specific only to that user — one day after Google revealed more details about its own take on that idea in the form of Project Glass.
Called SemanticMap, the idea is technology that lets physical signage change based on a specific user, that user’s location and what that person is looking for. Unlike Google’s glasses, Microsoft’s technology doesn’t require the user to have any special headgear or other equipment; and it makes use of three key bits of technology that Microsoft is working on and will very likely become more and more ubiquitous in the years ahead: face analysis, gesture recognition and proximity detection. Microsoft has already been using some of this to good effect in the Kinect. → Read More
The Kinect’s powerful depth- and position-sensing sensors have been put to many a noble purpose: basic artificial vision, translating sign language, controlling humanoid robots, and real-time 3D mapping of the real world. But at last it can help you pick out a pair of jeans.
You may not be aware of the alarming fact that up to 40% of clothing purchased is returned because of poor fit. Something must be done! Thoughtfully, Bloomingdale’s contracted with British body-mapping firm (it’s a thing) Bodymetrics to provide an in-store service using Kinects that analyzes and categorizes your body, the better to find you clothes that fit. At long last, our global nightmare of loose jeans is over. → Read More
This video from Waterloo Labs shows a bunch of young, excited interns building what amounts to a computer-controlled Etch-A-Sketch. The project uses an Xbox Kinect sensor to find the nearest point in space and then transmits that motion to an Arduino board which in turn controls stepper motors to turn the Etch-A-Sketch knobs. Sure you could just turn the knobs yourself, but where would the fun be in that?
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I’ve played through my share of tower defense games in my day — and have gotten hopelessly addicted to a few of them — but none really approach Andy Wallace’s Doodle Defense when it comes to execution. You see, instead of dragging and dropping pre-made parts onto a field, players must defend against invaders by drawing their own towers and obstacles on a whiteboard. → Read More
Deep in the skunk works of its Research and Labs divisions, secreted around the Seattle area, Microsoft is working on totally reinventing the way people interact with their computers. Very little is out in the open or in more than a prototype form, but the work is unquestionably being done.
Last week it transpired that Microsoft is working on building Kinect into the bezels of laptops, and after that, presumably, tablets and eventually mobile phones. But it’s not just about building out the install base for Dance Central 3. It’s enabling the next generation of awareness in our electronics. The iPhone ushered in an era where our devices know when we touch them. Microsoft is working on the next one, in which our devices will simply know us. → Read More
We’ve known for some time that Microsoft would be bringing official Kinect support to Windows this week, but one thing they kept quiet was the fact that they’d be debuting a new version of the hardware as well.
It’s not tiny, as some hoped, or built into the bezel of a laptop, as we know it will be eventually, but it does improve on the original in a few ways. → Read More
The Windows release of Kinect is coming up in a couple days, but for most people that won’t be a major event: the Kinect they have is sitting on their TV or in a drawer, waiting to be taken out for an impromptu Dance Central 2 party. Of the 10 million Kinects out there, the only ones connected to computers are the ones being fiddled with by the various hackers and students making science projects out the things.
But according to the Daily, Microsoft is hoping to remedy this particular situation by building Kinect sensors right into your laptops. TechCrunch alum Matt Hickey got to handle a pair of prototypes, which were confirmed to be official, not just one of the many experiments that hide within Microsoft’s various lairs. → Read More
The Galaxy Nexus’s 4.65-inch display may make it a handful for some, but a nifty new project from a developer known as DDRBoxman allows users to interact with their Galaxy Nexus on an even grander scale.
With the help of a projector, a Kinect camera, and a specially tweaked Ice Cream Sandwich ROM, he was able to interact with his Nexus by touching a wall. → Read More
We knew that Microsoft’s hit motion-control accessory for the Xbox 360, Kinect, was coming to Windows eventually. They’ve been hinting at it, people have been hacking it, and they even released an SDK a little while back. But one of the last things Ballmer said tonight at his keynote was a definite date for when Kinect would be coming to Windows: February 1st.
That’s really all there is to it.
If you’re interested in contributing, check out the SDK, or if you just want to see what people have put together (there has really been some mind-blowing stuff over the last year), scroll through our Kinect tag. → Read More
Last week, Microsoft overhauled the Xbox 360. The update brought dozens of new features, but there was one I was particularly excited about: when paired with a Kinect, the new interface was said to pack voice recognition support pretty much everywhere.
As I noted in my initial Kinect review well over a year ago, the Kinect’s voice system was the one bit I found particularly disappointing. After finally seeing someone do something right with voice with Siri, the idea that the 360 might be getting a wonderful voice interface had me beyond excited.
Alas, it still sucks. → Read More
Erick isn’t much of a gamer, which is why he’s particularly suited at assessing the new Xbox 360 UI, dubbed Metro by those in the know. Aside from the obvious changes in design, the UI actually makes it easier for guys like Erick to use the Xbox to watch movies, Youtube videos, UFC fight, and other media ephemera that thus far has been lacking in the Xbox experience.
Microsoft knows that the 360 is reaching the end of its life cycle and next gen stuff will probably be announced by the next E3. That said, this update allows the stragglers – folks who have been thinking about an Xbox but who may not play games – to purchase the device as a media center rather than a games machine. → Read More
There’s seemingly no end to the clever things that people can do with a little know-how and a Kinect camera, and now it seems like the machine learning enthusiasts at ChaLearn want to use the Xbox accessory to change the way computers deal with gesture controls.
In short, they’re challenging the world’s data tinkerers to develop a learning system that allows a Kinect to recognize physical gestures in one shot. → Read More
Brick and mortar store owners can now get access to the same kind of analytics available to website admins. Shopper Tracker is a new product from Argentinian developer Agile Route built off of Microsoft Kinect. It analyzes customer movements to provide traffic flow analysis and heat maps indicating which shelves are attracting shoppers and which products they touch or take. This can be tied to conversion data by product SKU to help merchants optimize where products are placed within their stores. → Read More
Folks who want to connect their Kinect to their PCs can now use specially-designed hardware to add real-time, 3D tracking to programs, games, and research projects. Using the Kintect SDK hackers can add the Kinect to nearly any hardware.
Improvements include a new “Near Mode” that allows for objects at about 50 centimeters away from the sensor to register in 3D space, the first step to adding Kinect functionality to a desktop computer. → Read More
We’ve shown you many Kinect-based hacks and applications over the past months, and here is a new one from Japan: major robot maker Yaskawa has developed a humanoid that can be remote-controlled using a Kinect interface. Dubbed SmartPal VII, the telepresence robot can be used to communicate with other people over a distance or even help them cleaning up rooms, for example (by controlling the robot’s arms using Kinect). → Read More
The Kinect has proved fertile ground for hackers and innovators all over the world, from individuals to student teams to established researchers. But as yet there haven’t been many commercial applications. Microsoft and TechStars are hoping to turn the creativity and momentum associated with the Kinect into some functioning startups.
Applications are being taken through January 25th; ten will be chosen and given the opportunity to participate in a three-month incubation program at Microsoft — and get $20,000 in seed funding. Got an idea for a new device, service, or method of using the Kinect’s low-cost real-time depth sensor? This could be a good opportunity — if you can afford to move to Seattle for a while this Spring. Don’t worry: the program is in the downtown area, not Redmond. → Read More
Have you had your share of augmented reality this month? Between CMU’s OmniTouch, Microsoft’s HoloDesk, and Metaio’s updated AR app, you could be forgiven. But trust me, you’ll want to watch this video of Microsoft Research prototypes using pico projectors and Kinect cameras.
The ability to quickly build and track a 3D model of the environment (as we and Bill Gates both found amazing) is combined with the ability to display synthetic information onto the real environment. The result? The digital simulation of the world is overlaid on the world, in real time, and it’s utterly insane. → Read More
Fresh on the heels of its envisioned future video, Microsoft has posted an inspiring portrayal of the Kinect to YouTube. The video outlines the somewhat unexpected uses of Kinect in its one-year history, including educational and medical applications, which is likely meant to boost awareness ahead of the commercial launch of the Kinect SDK.
Developers have been hacking Kinect and creating new uses and applications for the platform since just days after its initial launch, but this marks the first time that companies will be able to profit off of their Kinect creations. According to CNET, the Kinect SDK will be available in early 2012 to anyone ready and willing. → Read More
I took my six-year-old son Kasper to Microsoft’s Kinect For Kids event yesterday in hopes of better understanding Microsoft’s efforts at grabbing the younger demographic. While he’s already an avid weekend gamer, I wondered if Microsoft’s latest immersive play solutions would stir him in anyway. I discovered two things: that the Kinect for Kids initiative, as evidenced by the image above, is a sometimes sad but immersive playspace and that Microsoft has a very narrow age window into which they release most of their games.
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Microsoft and Build-A-Bear (a store where children can taxidermy the flayed corpses of teddy bears killed in the wild) are working together to create Kinectimals Now With Bears, a Kinect-connected game for the 360.
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