motion tracking
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Satarii Star movement-tracking camera dock finalized as Swivl, now available for reserve (update: video)
If you'll recall, back in January we took notice of an interesting gizmo dubbed Satarii Star -- a movement-tracking dock concept that was seeking funding on IndieGoGo. Well, the unit has since been funded and today the company is re-introducing it as the Swivl. Aside from the updated moniker, it's also sporting an updated feature set and a revamped look. The unit can still house gadgets from iPhones and Androids to pocket camcorders, but improves on the Satarii by adding vertical tilt functionality on top of its 180 degrees of horizontal movement. (Update: We're told that the Swivl can also rotate a full 360 degrees.) Notably, it's stated as being able to "move faster than you can" -- if you're worried about staying in the shot, that is. As it currently stands, we're only seeing renders of this little guy, but the company expects to have fully functional units at CES this January, with units shipping to North America in "early 2012" for about $160. Hopefully we'll get to see the Swivl do its thing on the show floor, but for now, interested parties can reserve their very own at the source link below. You'll find the full press release just past the break. Update: You'll find a video of a pre-production Swivl in action after the break as well. %Gallery-138884%
KinectNUI enables Minority Report style interaction in Windows sans gloves (video)
When Microsoft released its Kinect SDK we marveled at the impact it could have on desktop interaction; sure enough, Kevin Connolly's Kinect Natural User Interface has made our geeky pipe-dreams a reality. His inspiration for project? Not surprisingly, the Minority Report UI (aka g-speak). Similar projects like MIT's hack do exist, but it's brilliant knowing that another emulation has been made rather quickly with Redmond's tools. In a brief video using the Kinect on Windows 7, he demos various ways of manipulating on-screen content with hand gestures and body tracking -- neglecting his mouse in the process. It's still a work in progress, but the results are already quite striking, so take that ancient input device and click past the break for the full demo.
Kudo Tsunoda doesn't tell us a thing about Windows 8 support for Kinect
Microsoft asked us to drop by at E3 to chat up a generically identified "Xbox executive," imagine our surprise when we found Kudo Tsunoda hiding behind door number six. Wearing his signature shades, Kudo gave us a brief primer on what makes Kinect great, or at least a heavy endorsement of Kinect Fun Labs. While we can certainly dig the bite-sized gadgetry Fun Labs has to offer, we like to dig deeper -- will the Kinect hardware ever be integrated into other devices? Any plans for Microsoft's 3D tracking camera and Windows 8? Kudo did his best to feed our ravenous appetite for answers. It wasn't easy on poor Kudo, of course -- more than once we saw him glance longingly at his wrangler, a friendly PR rep keeping him from spilling the beans on anything too awesome. Probing about Windows 8 and Kinect produced one such look, and while our man very lightly suggested that Microsoft does more than games -- and that the dual-camera device might start showing up on other devices -- the big M had nothing to announce at that time. Kudo did go on to say, however, that we can expect to see new, innovative, "oh my gosh, I can't believe Kinect can do that" experiences at E3 year after year, citing this year's keynote for some recent examples. While we couldn't coax any leaks about Xbox or Kinect successors out of the man, it's good to see Microsoft's continued dedication to improving the platform.
Aiken Labs brings 9-axis modular motion sensing to Android, we go hands-on (video)
We already had a chance to try out Immersive Motion from Aiken Labs at CES, but now the nine-axis modular sensing system is making its way to Android and other mobile platforms, including iOS and Windows Phone. The more compact battery-powered server brings motion-controlled gaming to mobile environments, capturing position data from matchbox-size modular sensors that you can tape to a wooden sword or Viking helmet for live-action outdoor role-playing, or on you paws and dome during a virtual jam session with friends, for example. The mobile kit includes a pair of wireless sensors with a 50-foot range that you can attach to literally any accessory or appendage, and is expected to sell for about $300 when it ships later this year. You'll also be able to connect up to two smaller wired sensors to each wireless sensor, for about $50 a pop. The kit's price tag makes it cost-prohibitive for all but the most hardcore gamers and devs (there's an SDK available as well), but Aiken hopes to make its flagship product more affordable if its able to sell the kits in high volume. The tool has applications in other industries as well, including research and Hollywood, where it could be used as a (relatively) low-cost outdoor motion-capture suit. The early version we saw at E3 today is definitely not ready to head to production, but we're still months away from an actual release, giving Aiken some time to improve accuracy, and perhaps find a way to reduce that price. Jump past the break to see how it works.%Gallery-125868% Tim Stevens contributed to this report.
Kinect Star Wars hands-on: Engadget and Joystiq get in touch with the Force
We've been waiting for nearly an entire year to carve up battle droids with a Kinect-controlled lightsaber, and we got the chance last night, donning virtual Jedi robes alongside our friends at Joystiq and calling upon our inner midi-chlorians in a series of brief co-op fights. The interactive demo of Kinect Star Wars version is a fairly scripted affair -- your light side avatars automatically dash from encounter to encounter with the occasional cutscene between, without any prompting from you, and when you get into a melee, the computer controls which enemies you face as well. Still, there are quite a few maneuvers available once combat begins in earnest. You can swing your right hand to swipe with the lightsaber, bring up your left for a powerful Force Push, jump to flip over hapless destroyer droids, step forward to dash directly at a foe, and tilt your body to dodge and flip. There's a bit of a delay between the time you gesture and the time the game recognizes your actions, but it generally seemed to follow our saber strokes, and a product manager tells us a lag fix is inbound. Long story short, we can't tell you quite yet if your 1:1 slicing fantasies will be fulfilled.
Kinect keeps surgeons on task, Nintendo 3DS might assist optometrists with diagnoses
The latest generation of gaming gadgets do some nifty tricks, and one of the niftiest they might perform is assisting the realm of medicine. Microsoft's Kinect sounded like a candidate for surgery, and this month real-life surgeons have actually put it to use -- Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, Canada rigged the Xbox 360 depth camera to its medical imaging computer. Now, doctors don't have to scrub out to manipulate an MRI scan, or even appoint a peon to the task -- rather, they simply raise their bloodied glove, and dive into the digital imagery with a wave of a dextrous hand. Meanwhile, the American Optometric Association has expanded upon its initial praise of Nintendo's 3DS, saying the autostereoscopic 3D handheld "could be a godsend for identifying kids under 6 who need vision therapy." Though Nintendo's warning labels had originally incited a bit of fear among parents, the organization says that kids who can't experience the 3DS to its full potential may have amblyopia (or other vision disorders) that can be more easily treated the earlier it's caught, though one doctor interviewed by the Associated Press contends that kids with amblyopia may not know what they're missing to begin with -- so don't necessarily expect a panacea, folks.
Kinect meets a Pufferfish display, produces wonderfully creepy all-seeing eye (video)
As Kinect hacks go, this one's not going to bowl you over with its technical complexity, but the effect of what it does is quite dramatic. One of Microsoft's sensor-rich, camera-laden Xbox accessories has been repurposed to communicate with a Pufferfish spherical projection display -- via the magic of WPF and openni -- with its motion tracking algorithms serving to control the image on the giant ball. Naturally, the first thing the tweakers behind this mod thought up was a Tolkien-inspired eye that follows people around the room. Sadly, the single Kinect box isn't enough to provide 360-degree coverage, but it's probably just a matter of time until they splice an array of them together and creep us out completely. Video after the break. Update: You asked for the eye of Sauron and now you've got it. Second video added after the break.
Aiken Labs shows off modular motion-sensing game kit, we give it a swing (video)
If you're looking to get your motion-controlled gaming fix, there are plenty of ways to go -- cameras, electromagnets and accelerometers, for starts -- but most figure you'll buy a single peripheral, a few plastic accessories, and call it a day. That's not the Aiken way. North Carolina startup Aiken Labs wants to sell you a set of tiny boxes that you can stick on any body part or toy you own, each with a full inertial measurement package (three-axis accelerometer, magnetometer and gyroscope) inside. The boxes connect to a base station over 802.15.4 wireless that doubles as a USB recharging unit for the lot, and you can connect up to eight modules to track 24 degrees of freedom at a time. It's not an elegant solution, to tell you the truth, particularly given the hacked-together nature of the prototype devices we saw on the CES 2011 floor, but we love the idea of simply affixing a box to a helmet to get instant head-tracking support in our favorite PC titles. Inventor Chris Aiken tells us a starter set will ship for about $300 with two sensors and the base station in the second quarter of this year -- additional sensors should run $100 each -- and you can see what it looks like in a video right after the break. %Gallery-113714%
Weta Workshop builds real-life TF2 sentry gun, minus the screaming and blood (video)
Weta Workshop is filled with engineers, and that means they solve problems. Practical problems. For instance, how Valve Software is going to keep its throng of Team Fortress 2 players in awe. The answer? Use a gun. Like this heavy-caliber, tripod-mounted, fastidiously crafted life-size reproduction of The Engineer's level 1 Sentry Gun, which features a bona fide motion sensor for tracking whosoever is fool enough to venture into Valve's geektastic lobby in Bellevue, Washington and touch the darn thing. We're ready to volunteer. Video after the break.
Microsoft Kinect starts making home deliveries to beta testers
As beta testing programs go, Microsoft's Kinect venture has been kind of... leaky. No surprises, therefore, that we've now received our first in-the-plastic pictures of the motion-tracking camera peripheral, replete with a few select shots of its packaging. Redmond's promise that hardware was en route to testers was clearly not a hollow one, and we can now probably expect a bunch more unauthorized disclosures about the user experience with what should be final retail units. The outside of the packaging includes a couple of teasers encouraging users to pick up some of those bodacious PDP stands and wall mounts for their Kinect -- presumably the start of a tidal wave of Kinect accessories. %Gallery-101257%
Microsoft hints at touchless Surface combining camera and transparent OLED (video)
We've always wondered whether Microsoft's multitouch table would actually ever arrive, dreaming of Minority Report hijinx all the while, but after seeing what the company's Applied Sciences Group is currently cooking up -- a touchless telepresence display -- we'd rather drop that antiquated pinch-to-zoom stuff in favor of what might be Surface's next generation. Starting with one of Samsung's prototype transparent OLED panels, Microsoft dropped a sub-two-inch camera behind the glass, creating a 3D gesture control interface that tracks your every move by literally seeing through the display. Combined with that proprietary wedge-shaped lens we saw earlier this month and some good ol' Johnny Chung Lee headtracking by the man himself, we're looking at one hell of a screen. Don't you dare read another word without seeing the prototype in a trifecta of videos after the break.
Microsoft's new lens tracks your face, steers 3D images to your eyes (video)
Glasses-free 3D has taken several forms, but most have a critical flaw -- viewers have to stand in predefined locations to get the effect. That just won't do, so Microsoft's prototyped a new approach, and it's one of the wildest we've seen. Taking a cue from Project N... we mean Kinect, cameras track the face while a special wedge-shaped lens traps bouncing light, and after the beams have reached a "critical angle," it exits towards the viewers eyes, aimed by programmable LEDs at the bottom of the screen. Since the system can beam a pair of simultaneous images to two different places, the obvious use is stereoscopic 3D, but researchers found they could also send different images to different viewers, as a sort of privacy screen. If that sounds far fetched, you're not alone -- but you'll find a video proof-of-concept at the more coverage link.
Editorial: ESPN bypasses corporate red tape with iPad and Xbox 360, wannabe innovators should take note
So, there's two ways to look at this. One would be to gawk at the fact that ESPN, the worldwide leader in sports broadcasting, is using iPads and Xbox 360 consoles -- common devices that are widely available to mere mortals -- to drive content to millions of consumers. Another would be to gawk at the fact that ESPN has somehow managed to keep its finger on the pulse of innovation, despite being swallowed by Disney and being a part of one of the planet's most monolithic corporations. Thankfully for you, we're going to cover both angles here. Our eyes were opened after stepping foot in the company's Bristol headquarters and really getting a feel for how the company views technology and its integration into programming, and it led us to a philosophical conclusion about how corporations should (but oftentimes aren't) be taking advantage of what's readily available. Ready to get schooled? Head on past the break. %Gallery-95012%
Students program Human Tetris into 8-bit microcontroller, give away schematics for free (video)
Sure, Project Natal is the hotness and a little bird tells us PlayStation Move is pretty bodacious, but you don't have to buy a fancy game console to sooth your motion-tracking blues. When students at Cornell University wanted to play Human Tetris (and ace a final project to boot), they taught a 20Mhz, 8-bit microcontroller how to follow their moves. Combined with an NTSC camera, the resulting system can display a 39 x 60 pixel space at 24 frames per second, apparently enough to slot your body into some grooves -- and as you'll see in videos after the break, it plays a mean game of Breakout, too. Full codebase and plans to build your own at the source link. Eat your heart out, geeks.
Hands-free: Camera-controlled Racquet Sports
Call to mind Wii Sports' tennis, and you don't have to stretch your imagination too much further to arrive at Ubisoft's Racquet Sports. If you own a Wii, you already own this experience, to which Ubisoft has added some variety, including ping-pong, badminton, squash, and beach tennis, and a more fleshed-out art direction than Nintendo's pack-in or even its sequel, Wii Sports Resort. There's no Mii support, but Racquet Sports offers its own dollish avatars, customized with unlockable trinkets. There's a derivative multicultural vibe, too, as the characters and playing courts span the globe in classic and fantastic scenarios. Grandma vs. dashiki-clad boy in an aquarium squash court? Yes. Of course, the experience you don't own is "tennis" played with a motion-tracking camera. No, not Natal -- not at all. Ubisoft's USB camera, first bundled with scarcely-reviewed Your Shape (featuring Jenny McCarthy), might be on the cutting edge of a revived and revamped gaming tech trend, but its implementation in Racquet Sports is painfully dull. %Gallery-79917%
Sony and Atracsys develop 3D interface for ORs, sci-fi franchises (video)
You know what the world needs? Another company peddling their take on the touch interface as being "just like Minority Report!" Sun, Raytheon, Oblong -- it's a pretty obvious press hook (as well as a pretty awesome area of research), but every once in a while some such technology does come around that begs for a closer look. A collaboration between Sony Europe and Atracsys (a Swiss company specializing in optical tracking) ICU is a dual camera-based system that tracks and analyzes body movements in three dimensions, in real-time. Initially designed for use with a computer in a sterile operating theater, the interface not only notices subtle changes in the position of your body, arm, hand, or finger position, but it's also determine rough age, sex, or facial expression of the user. We're guessing that this bad boy has some novel gaming potential as well (count on the folks at Engadget to bring everything down to their level)! PR / videos after the break.
Microsoft's Project Natal roots revealed: 3DV Systems ZCam
We had a hunch that 3DV Systems' technology -- which we actually toyed with back at CES 2008 -- had something to do with Microsoft's newly unveiled Project Natal motion tracking solution, and today details have trickled in to us confirming as much. As the story goes, 3DV Systems was initially hoping to have the ZCam in the manufacturing process by the tail end of 2008, but Microsoft swooped in and acquired the outfit just weeks after it blew minds in January. At the time, not much thought was given to the pickup; now, however, we're treated to a bona fide ZCam brochure which details the actual specifications behind the Xbox 360's newest friend. Granted, we have every reason to believe that Natal has advanced significantly from what you'll see in the gallery below, but it's still a tasty nugget of behind-the-scenes information. Of note, the former 3DV Systems VP of Business Development was quoted as saying that the target retail price of the ZCam was $100, though it still had aways to go as of early 2008.
iPoint 3D brings gesture-based inputs to 3D displays
Just in case you've been parked out under a local stone for the past six months and change, we figured it prudent to let you know that the 3D bandwagon has totally regained momentum. So much momentum, in fact, that the brilliant minds over at Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft have decided to bust out a 3D innovation that actually makes us eager to sink our minds into the elusive third dimension. The iPoint 3D, which we're hoping to get up close and personal with at CeBIT next week, is a technology that enables Earthlings to interact with a 3D display via simple gestures -- all without touching the panel and without those style-smashing 3D glasses. The gurus even go so far as to compare their creation to something you'd see in a science fiction flick, with the heart of it involving a recognition device (usually suspended above the user) and a pair of inbuilt cameras. There's no mention of just how crazy expensive this would be if it were ready for the commercial realm, but we'll try to snag an estimated MSRP for ya next week.[Via Physorg]
Panasonic's new 3D range sensor functions in direct sunlight
Perhaps you're looking for a way to track potential cat burglers, give your robot some spacial sense, make your UIs a little more interactive, or you simply want to keep an eye on your "compound." Panasonic has just released detailed specs for its 3D range sensor -- the first, it says, to work in direct sunlight. Exhibited at CEATEC 2008, the device emits light from several dozen LEDs to track the movements of any object in its view. The company's previous 3D range sensor didn't function well (if at all) in bright light, but the equipment now compensates for "extremely bright ambient light" by measuring it and eliminating it from the equation. Can't wait to track your loved ones' every movement? The 24 volt, USB 2.0 sensor is slated for an April 1, 2009 release. [Via Tech-On!]
Sony brewing up 1:1 motion tracking sword game for PS2 and EyeToy
This makes sense on very many levels, but at the same time we've gotta think those long-suffering PS3 owners will be a bit "hacked off" by Sony's announcement of a motion-tracking sword game headed for... the PS2. The PS2's market saturation (every man, woman and child on earth has at least two), and the EyeToy's general success (10.5 million units sold) make the combo the perfect trojan horse for fighting the good fight against Wii world domination. Sony's using new (sort of) color tracking technology to beef up the EyeToy's motion tracking that will let it detect and track brightly colored objects, instead of just motion, for two new EyeToy: Play games due for the holidays this year. The one we've really got our eye on is the kiddie-oriented Hero which is a first person perspective sword fighting game that comes complete with a fluorescent toy sword for battling kinda-almost-evil antagonists. Of course, none of this would be disappointing in the slightest if Sony would just work PS2 backwards compatibility into its fully capable PS3, and hey, maybe they'll surprise us. Nudge, comma, nudge. Wink. Wink.[Thanks, Seth B]
