Russian search giant Yandex has collaborated on developing an experimental gesture-based interface to explore how similar tech could be incorporated into future social apps and mobile products. As its search share has stagnated, future business growth for Yandex looks likely to depend on its ability to produce a pipeline of innovative products and services — hence its dabbling with gestures. → Read More
CamBoard Pico is German firm pmdtec’s next-generation gesture input reference device. We showed you before what it could potentially do to change the computer interface, and now there are a couple of new videos from the company showing how it’s working with middleware makers and what it can truly accomplish in practice in shipping products. → Read More
After I shelled out something like $200 for a Kinect bundle that I ended up shoving in a closet, the team at 4tiitoo may have finally given me a reason to dig the thing out. The Munich-based company recently kicked off a Kickstarter campaign to let Kinect owners control their PCs with little more than some subtle glances, thanks to a $50 add-on they’re calling the eyeCharm. → Read More
The Kinect is arguably Microsoft’s most important innovation of the past decade, and has done more for changing the nature of computer interaction than pretty much any other recently created input devices. Today, Microsoft Research has demoed how it’s about to get even better, with the addition of hand recognition complete with refined gesture support. → Read More
Far from being chained to the product pipeline, Microsoft’s research labs operate more like university research departments — with a remit to be the “farseeing eyes” of the company, says Andrew Blake, lab director of Microsoft Research Cambridge. Projects bubbling away in this “cauldron of ideas” may never end up on a shelf — giving Redmond’s researchers the freedom to think way beyond the box. → Read More
A video conferencing startup called Personify, Inc. (formerly Nuvixa) is launching its first product next week, which will allow users to take advantage of the motion sensing technology in Microsoft Kinect and other depth cameras in order to overlay video of themselves on top of their presentations in real-time. Using the Personify Live software, users can present on top of their content… → Read More
Kinect Fusion, the Microsoft Research project which uses the Kinect sensor to create 3D models of objects and environments, will be made available in the Kinect for Windows SDK, Microsoft announced today. No word yet on when exactly that integration will go live, however – Microsoft only confirmed it will come in “a future release” of the developer toolkit. → Read More
Internet Explorer suddenly became one of the most widely available Internet TV browsers today as it starts rolling out to Xboxes. And early reports say its joystick-based interface is awful. Whatever. It’s v1. What matters is that Microsoft has united the world’s most popular motion sensor tech and one of the world’s most “popular” web browsers.
Wave hello to the future of the Internet. → Read More
Microsoft has rolled out a notable update to its Kinect for Windows SDK today, while also announcing the availability of the Kinect for Windows sensor in China. The new version of the SDK introduces a number of improvements which allow developers greater access to sensor data, plus it adds support for Windows 8, and offers improvement to the Kinect Studio developer tools. → Read More
Here’s a heartwarming story for a Hackathon Saturday: Chad Ruble’s mother suffers from aphasia due to a stroke. She hasn’t been able to use a keyboard for years because she is simply unable to recognize text. In order to help her, he built a Kinect-enabled interface that lets her move her hand around a series of simple icons – happy, sad, upset, etc. – and other icons that signify degree.
After… → Read More
The current gen Xbox may be a year past its halfway point but a purported “leaked” document dating back to August 2010 from a Microsoft presentation details the next gen Xbox 720 in great detail.
Features for the next Xbox, according to the document, will include native Blu-ray playback, full support for HD and 3-D, and beefed up hardware (graphics and processor) under the hood. Other bits and… → Read More
We haven’t been paying much attention to new games this E3 but a new title, Wreckateer, should be interesting to casual gamers who have a passing familiarity with another title involving avians who are peeved.
The game uses the Kinect interface to allow you to pull back a giant crossbow and throw rocks and bombs at ugly green trolls in castles. Using hand gestures you can move the missiles… → Read More
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… → 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… → 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… → Read More
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… → 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… → 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… → 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. → 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… → 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… → 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… → 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… → 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… → 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… → 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… → 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… → Read More
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