Microsoft pulls apart a Kinect camera, tickles your non-gaming fetish
By Richard Lai 
posted August 7th 2010 3:41PM
posted August 7th 2010 3:41PM
posted August 7th 2010 3:41PM
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I don't have high hopes for the kin, hopefully MS can surprise me
@The Geek Welcome to the world of tomorrow!!
@The Geek. I regret to inform you but, I killed the Kin. A long time ago in a matter of fact
@d0mth0ma5 I think it (the Kinect) will do ok, I don't think it will be as successful as the Wii (nor do I think the Move will be).
@The Geek wow mind fart, kin != kinect my bad
I don't have high hopes for "The Geek".
@The Geek
How about I surprise you instead? The Kin died 5 weeks ago. Microsoft has abandoned the project.
The Kinect on the other hand, has some real promise. Voice and facial recognition is pretty cool. Anytime technology can become more aware of its environment and react to that input in a useful way, good things happen. Its way cooler to say "hello xbox" to sign in, then to find a controller, scroll through the menus, find my gamertag, and sign in manually.
I will probably buy one sooner or later, I need to see more of the games that are in production before I make my decision.
@Red Dragon the way i see it, the kinect will work amazing for some game types (racing, boxing, sports), and terribly for others (RTS, FPS, and all the other stuff i play). unless MS can find a way for me to play call of duty 4 or black ops (i hate MW2), kinect will not be sitting on top of my xbox
@Lord Vader
"I killed the Kin. A long time ago in a matter of fact"
Did you at least do it whilst you were in a galaxy far, far away?
@The Geek
I'm going to cut it to you straight, if you want to buy a motion controller for those types of games, you are going to be disappointed. Different controllers are good for different things - I doubt you will find a compelling reason to buy Kinect if you are only interested in FPS'.
@d0mth0ma5
Move won't be as successful as the Wii, but it will be better than Kinect for sure.
I mean, just look at the facts, Sony tried this with PS2 EyeToy and it wasn't successful.
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8ZAswRZaAQ
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFyEqpDOf8U
Kinect only has cacual, family games.
While PSMove has hardcore, casual, family, shooter games.
Kinect doesn't have not even 1 shooter game on its library.
People that compare this with an EyeToy don't have a clue.
@Bcta30 I have a friend who is an university professor in robotic imaging and he says he have no idea how they have done the algorithms and you sit here and compare this with a Toy(eyetoy) and a dildo? FOR sure we all know how a dildo works, and they sell well, i mean they are successful, but don't compare them with it
@BlackedOut Yep, I'd say thats the best thing to do :)
@Bcta30
I actually think the other way around. I think the EyeToy will be successful but not as much as the Kinect. The same kind of games that are being made for the EyeToy can be made for the Kinect and hold a regular remote instead or a stick, Kinect can see any object you put in front of it, it doesn't need a light to capture the motion. The EyeToy is similar to the Wii while the Kinect has way more innovating possibilities. We'll see what happens though.
@Bcta30
I know you want to believe that they are the same thing, but the difference is much larger than you would like to believe - firstly look at the hardware:
The Playstation Eye is one camera and one microphone. most input via the cam is found by comparing images to see what has changed, thats how it reads movements. It also has facial recognition capabilities (not sure if Sony has yet implemented them - They are with Move though)
Kinect has that same tech within both cameras, as well as sending out an infrared beam which bounces back and is read by either one or two of the cameras. This way it literally builds up a 3D image of what is being sensed.
Now this is where Microsoft comes in, using facial recognition software via the VGA cameras, and skeleton mapping via the depth sensor - it knows where you are. All of this has been taught to the camera via software, which allows them to refine the algorithims and give them to developers.
@Bcta30
Also seeing as we can put in links, and to further my last point:
Microsoft are using people on Amazon's Mechanical Turk service to teach Kinect how to recognise people sitting down:
http://kotaku.com/5605936/is-this-how-microsoft-will-fix-kinects-couch-problem
@Bcta30
True, but MS has a larger Casual gaming group than Sony does and I still don't see "hardcore gamers" using the move more than a controller. They may try it to see how it works, but it will NEVER be as good as a controller, especially in multiplayer games.
Regardless of whether or not Kinect has a shooter in its library, nobody will or would use it for those types of games.
In the end, the Move will either do just as well or fail just as hard as the Kinect.
@BlackedOut
There is nothing in that article to even prove your statement remotely true. The whole article is conjecture and a rumor until proven otherwise.
@BlackedOut
I agree about seeing more games. The ones I saw at the Kinect website seem like Wii type games. I'd like to see a FPS type game in the mix.
It will be interesting to see what happens. Will MS lure Wii gamers? I think they can. Savvy shoppers can buy just one console that will appeal to different types of gamers.
@Lord Vader lol
@The Geek You really think it will be good for boxing? In my personal opinion, it would need to have 1:1 tracking for fighting games, something which I doubt it will have. You get anyone with a trained punch and I'll guarantee there will be problems. Also the fact that it doesn't pick up black well doesn't bode well either...
@kyuuketsuki
It uses infrared light to pick up people, skin colour doesn't matter here, neither does the room lighting.
And full body skeleton mapping isn't good enough for a boxing game?
I want what you are drinking.
Where's the camera that sends images back to Redmond?
I KID, I KID!
@Big Wizz
Hehe you think M$ would do like the rotten Apple? Guess what those front facing cameras do hehe
@Techtrino Don't confuse Apple with your local High School.
whats the motor for?
@TjK Tracking your movements I believe. What it does with multiple "targets" I don't know. I assume it will stay still.
@TjK
Actually the motor is for rotating the upper half of the unit, It will rotate to keep you as close to the center of the sensing area as possible.
@TjK
that's a cheeky avatar. not sure whether i should uprank or downrank you.
motor is for tilting up and down, trying to keep you in the center of the cameras I presume.
@ravissimo haha uprank of course :p thx for the info fellas, i feel a bit more informed now.
Got it wrong, it's an IR laser projector, one IR camera (for motion tracking), and a regular color VGA camera for video chat and such.
@Raffi256 Well its not that expensive for 150$, i wouldn't be surprised if microsoft is actually losing money on the hardware, you know there's soo much technology in there, and whenever i think about human recognition algorithms my mind blows, well making it is harder than dildo
@Raffi256 Woops! Thanks for the correction!
:O Looks confusing. I'd never be able to put that thing back together if they told me to.
@Jake Root Probably shouldn't buy your Kinect from IKEA then...
@d0mth0ma5 That's the only reason I don't shop there. I'm not good at putting things together. Maybe it's because I don't read the manuals.
Someone didn't grow up with legos.
@Raffi256 I grew up in the land of Grant Theft Auto and sleeping. It's called the late 90's. (I must admit, I'm 14).
@Jake Root Ah, those 10 years have made a big difference. No Dial-up internet, no Lego. It's a Brave New World.
@Raffi256
oh man, legos are ridiculous now! so much branding! i remember back in the day just random kits of legos with random pieces. Like a big bucket of legos that you just build stuff out of your imagination. Went into the lego store at the mall the other day and everything's a movie tie-in. I expected the star wars stuff, but prince of persia, really?
It's sad I think. While you could get creative with it, seems like people just want to build what's on the box. Legos were great because you weren't putting together a puzzle, you were making the puzzle. I think future skyscrapers around the world are all going to look the same. :/
@Jake Root
Funny, It seems I was still pretty early on in the growing up thing at 14. Your growing up right now!
@Jake Root Well that's obviously not the only reason since if you're 14 you shouldn't be buying furniture... Also, how the hell do you not have legos? I always buy my nephew legos for his birthday and Christmas and he's only 5.
@engadgetcomexcludeengadget well if his parents are anything like mine (i'm 16) they buy stuff from ikea, put the boxes in the middle of the room and say make me an office.
cool technology all said and done
@rsramkee Cool? its MIND BLOWING man
kinect u dirty girl put some clothes on
@vanno94
It looks like Johnny 5 lives on smack in the middle of that thing...
i can't shake the feeling it's really a decepticon transformer, who will try and hunt down the all spark, destroying all and everything in its path...
... then my life will be saved by a yellow chevy camaro who is really an autobot named bumblebee, and a whole new adventure starts...