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Posted by Joystiq Jan 12 2011 22:10 GMT
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Jack Schofield is quickly becoming our very favorite Kinect modder, largely because he keeps adding more games to his catalog of backwards-engineered, motion-supported classics. Check out his video to see how a Kinect and Wiimote can be used to make Max Payne even radder.

Posted by Joystiq Jan 11 2011 21:40 GMT
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Wanna learn how to deliver a keynote like Ballmer ... with your Avatar? This video explains the face and body mapping technology behind the upcoming Avatar Kinect app for Xbox Live.

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Posted by Kotaku Jan 11 2011 02:00 GMT
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#xbox360 At CES 2011, Microsoft unveiled Avatar Kinect, a new Xbox 360 app that uses the Kinect camera to track your facial expressions for a personalized, glorified chatroom. Just what does Avatar Kinect see? More than you might think. More »

Posted by Joystiq Jan 08 2011 00:50 GMT
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Either you know who Aphex Twin is -- and you know damned well to hide his album covers when you try to sleep -- or you're utterly clueless. Basically, the life's work of Aphex Twin (A.K.A. Richard D. James) is to create musical nightmare fuel. It is a calling at which he excels. And now, thanks to the Kinect hacking of one Robert Hodgin -- the same guy who did this -- Aphex Twin concerts have become more terrifying. Because, you know, that's exactly what they needed.

See Hodgin's hack, and its implementation into a New Year's Eve Aphex Twin concert, after the break.

Posted by Kotaku Jan 07 2011 22:20 GMT
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#ces Microsoft has a lot they want to talk about at this Consumer Electronics Show: Their big Kinect sales numbers, the future of that tech, their new phone. But they also have a few things they're not keen to discuss. More »

Posted by Joystiq Jan 07 2011 22:00 GMT
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Curious to see what Minesweeper, FreeCell and some of your other favorite Windows games would be like if they were controlled using only your ghastly human form? Good news -- when asked by the BBC whether Kinect functionality would soon come to Windows-based computers, CEO Steve Ballmer explained that Microsoft "will support that in a formal way in the right time."

Given the peripheral's sales success and the overflowing passion of the modding community (already using Kinect with PCs), we'd say the right time is "now." We're fine if Microsoft wants to take its sweet time, though -- we're not sure we're ready for our Kinect to watch us while we work, anyways. It can be so judgmental!

Posted by IGN Jan 07 2011 05:48 GMT
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We chat with Microsoft about balancing Kinect, the core, and more at the 2011 CES.

Posted by Popple Jan 06 2011 20:53 GMT
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Francis
the next evolution of podcasting
MM
but they are...

Posted by Joystiq Jan 06 2011 15:15 GMT
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Sure, you like dancing in your living room with robots tracking your every move, but what about dancing in the sky?! Okay, not quite, but folks in the UK attending tapings of SKY1's "Got To Dance" could end up strutting their stuff to Harmonix' Dance Central, perhaps winning one of 15 4GB Xbox 360s, each bundled with a Kinect and a copy of Dance Central.

Sky and Microsoft inked a deal that will see the entire second season of "Got To Dance" sponsored by Kinect's most popular dancing game, with viewers at home able to participate in the show's competitions through a corresponding website. UK residents can catch the show weekly on SKY1 and SKY1 HD (check local listings), and Sky subscribers can watch it through their Xbox 360s.

Posted by Kotaku Jan 06 2011 08:00 GMT
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#xbox360 In its first sixty days on sale, Microsoft's Kinect peripheral for the Xbox 360 has sold millions. Actually, that should read millions and millions. More »

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Posted by GameTrailers Jan 06 2011 04:20 GMT
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Now you can chat with your friends as your Xbox Live avatar and Kinect will track your face to animate your avatar in real-time.

Posted by Joystiq Jan 06 2011 03:20 GMT
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As expected, "Avatar Kinect" was unveiled during Microsoft's annual CES keynote. It's "a new way to socialize on Xbox Live" allowing direct Avatar control using Kinect, enabling the obligatory gesture control and adding impressive facial expression support. The service takes the form of "stages" which give users talk show-like sets to interact with their friends. Ever wanted to spend time with friends after the latest episode of your favorite show, assembled in a virtual roundtable, and then post the video to Facebook for friends to see? Yeah, neither have we ...

Ballmer says that Avatar Kinect will be available for Xbox Live Gold members only this Spring and comes with fifteen stages. We're working on getting the video of the demo up - hold tight!

Posted by Kotaku Jan 06 2011 03:11 GMT
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#ces We've been wondering what Avatar Kinect is. Now we know. It's a way to use Microsoft's Xbox 360 Kinect sensor to slip us into a Matrix of avatars hanging out together in the virtual world. More »

Posted by Joystiq Jan 06 2011 03:19 GMT
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It seems like just last November, Microsoft was predicting it'd sell around 5 million Kinect sensors by now. Wait -- it was last November! Anyway, that prediction was off by 3 million units ... in the company's favor. MS boss Steve Ballmer just told the crowd at his CES 2011 keynote that 8 million of the devices have been sold worldwide in six months. (We're guessing that's units shipped to retail, not sold through to consumers, but Microsoft wasn't more specific.)

2.5 million Kinects had been shipped by the end of November 2010, this after one industry analyst predicted that it was possible the hardware could top 4 million sold by January 31 of last year. What a pessimist!

Posted by Joystiq Jan 06 2011 03:10 GMT
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Microsoft has just announced at its CES Keynote this year that both the Netflix and Hulu Plus streaming services are getting Kinect-enabled later on this Spring. Hulu Plus was announced last year as launching in "early 2011," but it sounds like you'll have to wait until Spring to see that content on your Xbox.

Kinect's program manager Ron Forbes demonstrated both services on the stage here in Las Vegas, and it looked like what you'd imagine -- both services let you flip through video and use your voice to play, pause, and select what to watch. So Spring update for the console confirmed?

Posted by IGN Jan 06 2011 03:09 GMT
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Microsoft surpasses holiday goal.

Posted by Kotaku Jan 06 2011 02:30 GMT
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#ces What has Microsoft brought to Las Vegas for the Xbox 360? What else will they show besides video games? The answers await inside Microsoft's CES 2011 keynote. More »

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Posted by Kotaku Jan 05 2011 23:40 GMT
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#clips Ivy from Namco's Soulcalibur fighting game series is perhaps best known for her ample endowments and her unique sword. When combined with Kinect motion capture, Ivy's extreme anatomy doesn't hold up very well. More »

Posted by Joystiq Jan 05 2011 23:40 GMT
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So, remember all those times that you asked us how the Kinect manages to identify your human form and adapt it into an in-game Avatar? Remember how we told you that it did so with "robot magic?" We may have been a little off-base with that one -- the Xbox Engineering blog recently posted a full explanation of the all-seeing eye's actual inner workings in a manner simplistic enough for even technophobic cavemen such as ourselves to understand.

The post also gives a little insight into the trial-and-error development of Kinect. It sounds like it was a pretty fascinating process -- though apparently the dev team didn't even think to incorporate robot magic, which, in our opinion, seems like a pretty major oversight.

Posted by Joystiq Jan 05 2011 21:00 GMT
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Grand Theft Auto IV blamed for RRoD -- Tipster on April 30, 2008

Red Dead Redemption blamed for RRoD -- Tipster on June 21, 2010

Kinect blamed for RRoD -- BBC on January 5, 2011

As our tips box can attest to over the years, every major Xbox 360 release causes the unholy specter of the Xbox 360's infamous 'Red Ring of Death' to return. The family interviewed in this BBC piece have an especially poignant tale: they just missed out on the three year warranty the product carries for the RRoD and E74 errors.

Microsoft said in a statement, "There is no correlation between the three flashing red lights error and Kinect. Any new instances of the three flashing red lights error are merely coincidental." We believe it, given our anecdotal history. It's still of little consolation to anyone who was blessed with an old, out of warranty Xbox 360 that somehow hadn't died/broken/etc.

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Posted by Kotaku Jan 05 2011 20:40 GMT
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#ces The Consumer Electronics Show floor doesn't open officially until Wednesday morning, but we got an early look at the show in progress. What did we see? Green Hornet, Smurfs, and lots of 3D. More »

Posted by IGN Jan 05 2011 19:51 GMT
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Company says there is no link between console failures and Kinect.

Posted by Joystiq Jan 05 2011 14:48 GMT
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Here's a prime example of the importance of knowing your audience. Plenty of fully-formed games for Microsoft's Kinect hardware have been market researched and lovingly crafted, but peering into our souls with his Ultra Eye, YouTube user "hogehoge335" has tapped into our most heart-felt desires. In seconds, his new hack transforms the user into an Emerium Beam-blasting, Eye Slugger-tossing super hero -- tokusatsu icon Ultraseven, specifically.

We've been trying to think of a mature way to describe the video after the break, but our inner five-year-old has immobilized that part of our brains. So, in closing: He transforms! He can shoot lasers! He tosses his head thing! We want it! We want it!

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Posted by Kotaku Jan 05 2011 09:00 GMT
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#kinect We've already seen one way Microsoft's Kinect can be used to help bedroom game developers, but here's another, more exciting one: it can allow for home-grown motion capture. More »

Posted by Kotaku Jan 04 2011 20:00 GMT
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#kinect Susan Orlean has written wonderfully about an orchid thief and sundry other topics, but she's avoided video games. Hadn't played one since Pac-Man. Somehow, she got a Kinect. She likes it for what it's not. (Hint: What it actually is.) More »

Posted by Joystiq Jan 04 2011 16:30 GMT
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Glimpse Dog received what it purports to be a snapshot of a leaked slide from Microsoft's CES keynote (seen above) showing off something called, "Avatar Kinect." This by itself isn't all that exciting, but Winrumors believes that Avatar Kinect will be part of a forthcoming software update -- one that "will allow Kinect owners to interact with each other using their avatars" much like Sony's Home.

Furthermore, the site believes that "the avatars will have a separate area, much like the Nintendo's Mii channel, that will allow for users to control them using Kinect and interact to watch content or play games." Does this mean Kinect-based A World of Keflings wrestling matches? 'Cause if so, we're totally on board. Just as long as we don't have to queue for them, that is.

We'll presumably find out more when Microsoft's CES keynote is broadcast live this Wednesday from Las Vegas.

[Image credit: Glimpse Dog]

Posted by Kotaku Jan 04 2011 11:00 GMT
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#rumor Some photos snapped from behind the scenes at the setup for this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas hint Microsoft will be showing something called "Avatar Kinect". More »

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Posted by Kotaku Jan 03 2011 21:30 GMT
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#clips What may be most surprising about this video in which a younger brother is thoroughly griefed by his elder brothers, but that he's such a good sport about not being able to play Kinect in peace. More »

Posted by Kotaku Jan 03 2011 23:00 GMT
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#ces Computer hardware manufacturer ASUS has teamed up with the makers of Kinect's camera technology, PrimeSense, to bring controller-free, gesture-based gaming to your PC this year, a product it will show off at this week's Consumer Electronics Show. More »

Posted by Joystiq Jan 03 2011 21:30 GMT
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X-ray glasses are so 2010. We present for your consideration this Kinect hack from Technical University of Munich researchers, led by one Tobias Blum, who have created a "magic mirror" that lets you see your own skeleton.

Okay, so it's not actually your skeleton, but data from some anonymous patient's CT scan, being mapped to your movements to create the spine-tingling effect. Still, make no bones about it: this is one of the more impressive Kinect hacks we've seen to date.