#clips
This video by Vimeo user David Ghent shows what it looks like when New Year's (Eve?) is mixed with alcohol, Xbox 360 Kinect motion gaming and some PlayStation Move — all in a room that's not that big. More »
Primesense, the company that created the motion-sensing technology for Kinect, has teamed up with Asus to create a new controller-free interaction device -- this time for PC. The WAVI Xtion device is designed to enable gesture control of media center PCs in living rooms. It's similar to Kinect in a few ways, but focused on the multimedia control features instead of the game stuff.
There might still be games and other assorted programs: sometime after the Q2 launch, Asus will open an "Xtion Online Store" through which developers can sell apps designed in the Xtion PRO platform. The PRO development technology will be released in February. The WAVI Xtion device itself will be unveiled during CES, which runs from January 6 to 9.
#ces2011
Our favorite Brooklyn-based wacky video game peripheral maker, CTA Digital, will be showing off their latest collection of plastic and rubber add-ons for the Wii, Playstation 3 Move and Xbox 360 Kinect at CES next week. More »
Ever since the (recently departed) Milo reared his adorable head, we've envisioned at bleak future of Kinect-powered robots ruling over mankind with an iron, articulated fist. We've even seen the beginnings of this inevitable transition. Thankfully, one Taylor Veltrop was smart enough to embed an all-important feature into his Kinect robot: human control.
Remember, kids, if you want to keep control over your robots, they have to know who's boss.
#evenmorescience
Using Microsoft's Kinect to control a modified Roomba is impressive. Using it to get a kit-built humanoid robot to mimic your actions is pretty damn amazing. More »
#kinect
Microsoft has already taken action to block developer ThriXXX's adults-only girl-groping Kinect game from PC release, but that hasn't stopped the El Paso, Texas Fox affiliate from terrifying parents with the thought of their young children touching virtual breasts. More »
Looking to burn some of that Christmas cash? Kmart's discounted a number of recent and decent (and not-so-decent) console releases through New Year's Day. If you somehow failed to stockpile games following the season's gift-getting climax this past weekend, you may find some of your wished-for titles in Kmart's aisles.
While a number of the retailer's game discounts are available online (and generally competitive with the going rate), it seems most of Kmart's best deals are subject to in-store availability. If you don't see the sale prices reflected at your local store, just show the manager this post on the MyKmart Blog. Check out complete details, by console, after the break.
#medicine
We've said it before, and we'll say it again: compared to what it's capable of in other fields, Microsoft's Kinect is being wasted on video games. Especially when you consider it's helping these guys save lives. More »
You might have believed that Kinect was created to usher in a new era of interactive wonderment. You'd be wrong though. Kinect was made for this, a music video for one Ollisixtynine. You'd be forgiven for assuming it was a lost video from the 80s (keytar and all). Kinect's promise is now fulfilled.
We couldn't have been more excited at the though of Kinect recognizing even more of our moving parts, but it appears that rumors of a Kinect update said to improve the camera's resolution and observatory fidelity were incorrect. "We're constantly working to expand and improve on experiences for Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE" an Xbox rep told CVG. "However, this rumour is completely unsubstantiated."
So, while Microsoft will (of course) continue supporting the peripheral in many ways, an update that would specifically improve the accuracy of Kinect's sensor doesn't appear to be in the cards. We'll have to keep looking to unofficial hacks for new Kinect functionality -- at least for now.
#kinect
Part of the difficulty Microsoft has with Kinect in Japan is space. Many Japanese apartments are small, and just don't have the room to deal with Kinect. Here is one solution. More »
Two interesting updates have been released for Def Jam Rapstar. We'll start with the news most likely to be useful: the game's cheaper now. Publisher Konami announced that the MSRP has dropped to $39.99 for the standalone game; a quick look at Amazon shows that the microphone bundle has an MSRP of $49.99 -- and both are a couple of bucks cheaper on Amazon right now.
For those of you who already have it on Xbox 360 or plan to pick it up, you'll now be able to use the Kinect to record video for upload to the community, thanks to a new patch. However, one thing that hasn't been updated is how you look rapping at your TV. Sorry!
You may not have heard of Korean dev studio GamePrix, but its latest game, an MMO on the PC called Divine Souls, will support Kinect somewhere down the line. Company rep Jason Lim also told IncGamers that it's not the only developer who's trying to work with Microsoft on Kinect support in PC games.
There's currently no timetable for when the functionality will be live in the game, though Lim says "soon." In the meanwhile, why not check out some of the other crazy stuff Kinect is doing on the PC.
Full-body mapping isn't new to Kinect -- not even hacking it to control the MikuMikuDance is new. But this isn't the apparent innovation put on display by a Kinect tinkerer known as "Nao_u." The adventurous programmer combines Microsoft's camera sensor with a pair of Vuzix VR920 LCD glasses, allowing a player to see through Miku's eyes (projected in the VR920 head-mounted display), while controlling her in-game actions with body movements registered by Kinect. It's total first-person VR -- J-pop style -- with a $400 add-on!
Feeling confident in his new body, Nao_u steps out onto a precariously placed i-beam (just where did that come from?). High above the sim city, he takes his first, wobbly steps. You can see where this is going (after the break) ...
#pc
While Kinect will inevitably come to PC gaming one day in an official capacity (it's of course already being used by hackers), there have been no games actually revealed making use of the peripheral. Until now! More »
Sure, Kinect has been tested in plenty of super scientific ways over the past few months, and given plenty of secondary uses through impressive hacks, but will it work if you're ... Gwar? Game Informer had bassist Beefcake the Mighty and lead singer Oderus Urungus stop by its offices to capture on video a monumental 10-minute Dance Central session. If you haven't already clicked through excitedly, we should warn you the clip is a bit on the NSFW side of things, so viewer beware.
It seems so obvious: Using Kinect to help people learn American Sign Language. That's exactly what researchers at Georgia Tech College of Computing are working on, pairing Microsoft's oft-hacked motion sensing camera with custom software that previously required colored gloves kitted with wrist-mounted, 3-axis accelerometers. On a series of increasingly difficult tests, the software returned results with 100% accuracy, 99.98% accuracy, and 98.8% accuracy.
These promising results mean the team will be working on updates including a larger vocabulary which necessitates the need of "hand shape features." The initial proof-of-concept demo launched with a small vocabulary that excluded them in favor of broader gestural movements with the arms and body. We imagine that reported fourfold increase in Kinect image resolution would have a major benefit here, should Microsoft ever release it.
What if Kinect could track individual fingers? What if it could see not only the position of your hand, but its rotation as well? According to a report by Eurogamer, more advanced tracking from the Kinect is possible -- but only through a firmware update which its sources say is coming.
The Kinect sensor would be able to transfer up to 35MB/s of data, but is currently locked to about 15MB/s. The artificial limit is imposed by the fact that multiple USB devices may be connected to the console. However, Microsoft engineers are supposedly working on a fix that will allow a greater amount of data to be transferred from the Kinect, upgrading the 320x240 image it currently uses to a 640x480 one -- an effective fourfold increase in pixels.
Digital Foundry's Rich Leadbetter's said that a firmware-based solution is "doable," but admitted that there will be additional caveats for Microsoft to address. "It is uncertain just how accurate the camera's sensor is," even when operating at a higher resolution. "Additionally, processing four times as many depth pixels could slow things down more."
#xbox360
ThriXXX, the developer behind a title claiming to be Kinect's first sex game, won't be doing anything of the sort after platform holder Microsoft decided to block its release. More »
#rumor
While Kinect's hardware is locked in and finalised, the firmware that controls it is flexible and able to be upgraded. And that's exactly what Microsoft is planning on doing, according to a report on Eurogamer. More »
#xbox360
When Kinect went on sale in Japan, there was a big promotional event at a retailer in Akihabara. Over a hundred people lined up, and roughly half of them are now in possession of a very valuable collectible. More »
We understand. You work hard every day. You do your best. You like to come home, take off your crystal-coated cardigan, slip out of your crystal-laden loafers and fall back into your favorite crystal-encrusted chair and relax. But something is out of place, isn't it? Standing in the middle of your blindingly bright, crystal-enveloped home entertainment center is that plain, normal, hideous black Kinect.
Look, we've all been there, but you don't have to stand for it anymore! Now, thanks to DS Styles, a sparkling Kinect covered with over 5,000 genuine Swarovski crystals can be yours for only $631. See what your new and improved life will look like after the break.
#clips
Continuing their run of excellent shows about bringing games into the real world, Rooster Teeth's latest episode of Immersion looks at how well we'd fare if we had to live our lives in 2D. More »
It's finally happened: They've come up with a way to touch virtual breasts using the Kinect sensor. ThriXXX, a company that makes (you guessed it) sex games, has announced that it's created a Kinect hack to utilize the sensor as a control input for its "sim" games.
#nsfw
Microsoft's Xbox 360 camera-controller Kinect has been hacked for dozens of fascinating purposes. Now we have its sleaziest, a working demo of a virtual girl groping "game" that lets you rub down polygonal boobs with your own hands. More »
If you've played iOS slasher Infinity Blade as much as us, you've probably spent some of your finger-callous massaging sessions thinking, "Why couldn't I be hacking up the God King in the completely callous-free world of Kinect?"
Believe it or not, developer Chair Entertainment is way ahead of you ... and even ahead of itself, in a sense, according to co-founder Donald Mustard.
"We always have some cool ideas on deck, and kind of the inception of Infinity Blade began as a discussion around: 'If we were going to make a Kinect title, what would we make? What would a Chair Kinect game look like?'," Mustard revealed. "That discussion happened, you know, a year and a half ago. We had this really cool design, and it's not that dissimilar from the game you're playing today; it's just been refined and adapted to the iOS screen, which honestly I think is where the design works the best."
Mustard made clear that Infinity Blade isn't a Kinect game rejiggered for iOS so much as an idea sparked by Microsoft's device that found its home on iOS platforms. That said, Chair isn't closing any doors to Infinity Blade on Xbox 360.
"Yeah," co-founder Geremy Mustard added, "if the Kinect really takes off over the holiday season, who knows?"
#clips
FAO Schwarz and giant pianos combined to provide a touching moment in the movie Big in 1988. Xbox 360's Kinect and modders combined to recreate that scene without a real piano more than 20 years later. More »
The global hacking community has already done an admirable job of exploiting the technology inside Kinect, but now would-be motion control designers can get the tech straight from the source. PrimeSense, the company that created the motion-sensing tech inside each Kinect, has released open source drivers that will work either with Kinect or its own dev kit, which Develop notes is "smaller and lighter" than a Kinect unit.
PrimeSense has partnered with two other companies to create OpenNI, a not-for-profit organization set up to "promote the compatibility and interoperability of Natural Interaction (NI) devices, applications and middleware." The drivers are available on the OpenNI website, as is the NITE motion tracking middleware. OpenNI binaries are available for both Windows and Ubuntu.
With some pretty amazing Kinect projects already out there, we can't wait to see what comes of this officially backed software release. Check out a quick demonstration of the software's skeleton tracking capabilities after the break.
