kinect
Latest
Project Spark won't require Xbox Live Gold on any platform
Project Spark, Microsoft's game-creation app for Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC will not require a Gold-level Xbox Live subscription to play. The news comes from community manager Mike Lescault, who said in a Reddit thread that players "will not need a gold subscription to play Project Spark for free on any platform." The game will enter its Xbox One beta phase in January, and the PC beta program is expected to start this month. Project Spark players will be able to use Kinect as a motion capture device, and may eventually implement gameplay control using Kinect as well.
Watch Dogs delayed to Spring 2014
Ubisoft announced today that Watch Dogs has been delayed until Spring 2014. Communications manager Gary Steinman writes on the Watch Dogs blog, "As we got closer to release, as all the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place in our last push before completion, it became clear to us that we needed to take the extra time to polish and fine tune each detail so we can deliver a truly memorable and exceptional experience." The game was originally slated to be released this November on Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U, PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It was expected to be one of the highlights of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One launches. Speaking during Ubisoft's financial results call, president Yves Guillemot said, "Today we can say we already have a great game in hand. Still, in a world of mega-blockbusters, we have now come to the conclusion that the team needed additional time to realize the game's full potential." This additional time, he said, will allow Ubisoft to ensure that Watch Dogs is a "long term pillar" of the company's portfolio, much like Assassin's Creed and Far Cry.
Now Playing: October 14-20, 2013
Step forth and do battle this week with Valhalla Knights 3... Choose your platform to jump to a specific release list:
Microsoft unveils three Xbox 360 holiday bundles for Xbox One refuseniks
Microsoft is no stranger to launching Xbox 360 holiday bundles, but it faces a new challenge this year -- it has to include games that won't make us wish we had an Xbox One instead. It may have achieved that feat with a new trio of bundles launching worldwide. Its base 250GB kit ($300) includes both Halo 4 and Tomb Raider, two better games from recent memory. A 4GB Kinect pack (also $300) isn't very memorable with its inclusions of Kinect Adventures and Kinect Sports 2, but a 250GB Kinect offering ($400) supplements these with Forza Horizon. As it did last year, Microsoft is also slashing $50 off the US price of these holiday systems between launch (around October 13th) and the end of the holiday season. We're sure that many would still prefer the latest and greatest Xbox as a gift, but a new 360 bundle could be a nice consolation prize.
IndieCade 2013's Night Games are inventive, goofy fun
IndieCade isn't just a huge celebration of independent game development, it's also a street festival designed to appeal to all types of people, not just those who enjoy traditional video games. Enter Night Games, a special IndieCade event featuring lots of big, physical games designed to be played in the dark. That includes everything from the rhythmic, Kinect-powered Soundodger Live to The Hearst Collection, a life-sized recreation of a museum art heist, complete with laser security grid. Head past the break for a video rundown of our favorite Night Games, which turned out to be one of the highlights of the entire IndieCade festival.
Microsoft addresses fears over Xbox One targeted advertising
Microsoft has responded to questions raised by a recent Advertising Age report, which suggested that Xbox One users could offer up a "data treasure trove" for marketing and advertising purposes. Microsoft Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer Yusuf Mehdi addressed the Xbox One's potential for targeted advertising during a speech at the Association of National Advertisers Masters of Marketing Conference last week. Mehdi hinted that the Xbox One's bundled Kinect peripheral could track living room activity in order to serve users better-targeted dashboard advertisements. Responding to a request for comment from Eurogamer, a Microsoft representative linked to this forum post from Microsoft Director of Product Planning Albert Penello, regarding a previous marketing-focused interview. Penello assures that the company will not use the Kinect's player-tracking features to collect data for its previously outlined Natural User Interface Advertisements. "[...] Someone was talking about how some of the new Xbox One Kinect features *could* be used in advertising - since we can see expressions, engagement, etc. and how that might be used to target advertising," Penello wrote. "This is the point that seems to draw some controversy." Penello continued: "First - nobody is working on that. We have a lot more interesting and pressing things to dedicate time towards. [...] I'm not aware of any active work in this space. Second - if something like that ever happened, you can be sure it wouldn't happen without the user having control over it. Period."
Now Playing: October 7-13, 2013
Catch'em all and rise to new challenges this week with Pokemon X and Y... For those looking for something more supernatural, Beyond: Two Souls will also break out this week... Choose your platform to jump to a specific release list:
Daily Roundup: Honda and Toyota's human transporters, Valve's Steam Machine specs, Siri's voice actress and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Xbox One's next-gen Kinect won't collect information for use in targeted ads
With the slew of improvements Microsoft is making to the new Kinect, some potential buyers have grown concerned about the device's capabilities, particularly when it comes to how their personal information would be used. Of particular interest was whether or not the Kinect would be able to collect data for use in targeted advertizing. Thankfully, Albert Penello, Microsoft's Director of Product Planning, explained in a NeoGAF post yesterday that those fears are unfounded. "Nobody is working on that," Penello wrote, "We have a lot more interesting and pressing things to dedicate time towards." Additionally, he emphasized that certain types of sensitive information, like facial recognition scans, do not leave the console and therefore cannot be accessed from cloud-based services. Whether or not the response is enough to mollify concerned users remains to be seen, but the situation is likely not the last time Microsoft will find itself in a defensive position over the handling of user data.
Xbox One's Kinect to use 'time-of-flight' for more exact measurements
A recent Microsoft blog explored the technology behind the Xbox One's Kinect hardware and how "time-of-flight" is expected to be a significant improvement on the Xbox 360's version of Kinect. The tech "emits light signals and then measures how long it takes them to return," which Microsoft said needs to be "accurate to 1/10,000,000,000 of a second." The blog included two videos, the first demonstrating how the Xbox One's Kinect uses time-of-flight to track the 3D orientation of players as well as calculate force exerted by different muscles. The second video, seen after the break, shows off the camera's infrared sensors and ability to pick up movement while players are in the dark. Microsoft's blog described the development process behind the next-gen camera and how assistants from Microsoft Research had to overcome issues such as motion blur. Sunil Acharya, senior director of engineering for Microsoft's Architecture and Silicon Management team, said that "the time-of-flight camera uses global shutter, which has helped reduce motion blur significantly - from 65 milliseconds in the original Kinect to fewer than 14 milliseconds now."
Microsoft explains how it built a better Kinect, boosted accuracy without sacrificing performance (video)
The Xbox One's improved Kinect device is looking like an enormous leap ahead of its predecessor, but getting it there wasn't easy. Designing it took a joint-effort between Microsoft's research division and the Architecture and Silicon Management (ASM) shop, according to Redmond's TechNet blog. It wasn't enough that the designers had to address the original Kinect's shortcomings either, adding new features presented plenty of new hurdles to overcome. Take the new sensor's HD camera upgrade, for example. That wider field of view may make using Kinect in a real living room more feasible, but the enhanced fidelity made it harder for engineers to keep smaller objects (like fingers) from disappearing into the background. The team has outlined some of the camera's new tricks, like ambient light canceling and an improved color camera, in a pair of demo videos. You'll find both of those, plus a look at how the Kinect processes 6.5 million pixels per second without the Xbox One missing a beat, at the source link below.
Now Playing: September 30 - October 6, 2013
Relive the adventure this week with The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD... Choose your platform to jump to a specific release list:
Xbox Fitness official, brings famous trainers, personalized feedback to living room workouts
Microsoft's initial Kinect sensor might not have been awesome for first-person shooters, but it rocked for fitness games. Redmond is taking this one step further for its next-gen console with Xbox Fitness, a subscription-based service for the Xbox One. Xbox Fitness promises "instant, personalized feedback" on heart rate and form (thanks to the new Kinect's innards), and celebrity trainers include Jillian Michaels and Tony Horton. It's bringing P90X and Insanity workouts, too. The service will be free until December 2014 -- with Xbox Live Gold, of course -- but after that, Microsoft could be locking it behind two paywalls, according to a leaked test-page spotted by NeoGAF's ever-vigilant community. We've reached out to the company for confirmation on pricing and will update this post if we hear back. In the meantime remember: Shut up, focus and do the work.
New Kinect can understand two people talking at once
The new Kinect for Xbox One can pick up two people speaking at once and discern what each one is saying. Kinect Sports Rivals studio Rare sounded off on the sensor's features via a new video, as shown by Microsoft Corporate VP Phil Harrison to the audience at the Eurogamer Expo in London today. "It can not only hear two people speaking at once and understand two people speaking at once," said New Technology Lead Developer Nick Burton, "It can also see if their mouths are moving in a completely dark room. And that allows us to do crazy levels of detail." Included with every Xbox One, this Kinect is certainly a significant upgrade from its predecessor. The new sensor can detect 25 various joints for 6 different people, recognize which player is using which controller, estimate players' heart rates, map faces to 1,400 points, and tell you if you're too fat. Wait, one of those is the Balance Board... we bet the new Kinect can do that too, but we probably shouldn't give it any more ideas.
Now Playing: September 23-29, 2013
Kick it this week with FIFA 14... Choose your platform to jump to a specific release list:
Battlefield 4 for Xbox One may get Kinect-based look controls
If you've wanted to immerse your body in a first-person shooter, you've typically had to use a complex simulator. Battlefield 4 may soon provide a decidedly simpler (and cheaper) alternative. DICE's Patrick Bach has revealed to Xbox Wire that the game may use the Xbox One's Kinect sensor for head-tracking look controls, such as leaning around a corner. Voice commands might also be available, Bach says. There's no guarantees that BF4 will get the new input methods, but DICE may have competition as an incentive. Infinity Ward recently hinted to Official Xbox Magazine that Call of Duty: Ghosts could use Kinect for more than navigating menus, so there's a chance that at least one of the two games will have motion control in the future.
Kinect for Windows SDK update lets developers add green screen effects
Kinect for Windows developers can now get a little more creative: Microsoft has released version 1.8 of the camera's SDK, which lets app creators produce a green screen effect by removing the background. The update also brings a new Kinect Fusion API that scans the color of an object in addition to its shape, saving some 3D modelers the trouble of creating a separate texture map. There's better scene tracking and more code samples, too. Programmers who crave the new software tricks can grab the refreshed SDK and its companion tools at the source links.
Now Playing: September 16-22, 2013
Cause some mayhem this week with Grand Theft Auto V... Choose your platform to jump to a specific release list:
Now Playing: September 9-15, 2013
Gather a team and save the world this week with The Wonderful 101... Choose your platform to jump to a specific release list:
Jury awards Microsoft $15 million in Motorola patent case
Microsoft has been awarded $15 million in damages by a jury following a patent infringement lawsuit first filed by Motorola in 2010. Motorola spokesman William Moss said in a statement (via the Seattle Times) that the company was "disappointed" but is looking forward "to an appeal of the novel legal issues raised in this case." Motorola Mobility claimed Microsoft had infringed upon five different patents in the original lawsuit, though four were eventually dismissed over the years. The fifth patent, which deals with peer-to-peer communication between two wireless devices, then became the focus of the case over the last few years. The last year saw the most developments in the case, with ITC Judge David Shaw ruling in favor of Motorola in April of last year. Shaw then pushed for an Xbox import ban in the US the following month, only to have the ITC remand his decision and push it back to an administrative law judge for a second look. The suit then went through the process again, though Shaw ruled in Microsoft's favor the second time around.
