kinect

JediBot uses Kinect to control lightsaber

You spent countless hours locked in lightsaber battles with your buddies while growing up. What happens when there's no one left to play with you because they all have jobs and babies? You make your own Star Wars playmate.

Students at Stanford University programmed a robotic arm dubbed the JediBot. The bright orange arm swings a red foam lightsaber against a human opponent. It gets off surprisingly snappy attacks with some decent robotic muscle behind it.

It's one thing to create an arm that goes on the offensive, but another to build one capable of defense as well. That's where the Microsoft Kinect comes in. The opposing lightsaber is green so that the Kinect sensors can pick up on where it is in space. The JediBot uses that information to plan its defensive maneuvers.

Related link A Star Wars video game unlike any other

The robotic arm--which can swing its sword about once every two to three seconds--was created for a 3.5-week Experimental Robotics course. The class also produced a robot that grills hamburgers and even adds the ketchup. The only thing that would make the JediBot better is if it battled you to a draw and then offered you a tasty cheeseburger.… Read more

Kinect makes your hand a quadrocopter remote

Harry Potter would be jealous. The folks at ETH Zurich's Flying Machine Arena are making quadrocopters fly around the room with only hand gestures--no wand required.

The little four-rotor helicopter's remote control is hooked up to a Kinect Xbox controller and the controller's cameras are mounted above the user to give it a top-down view of the user's gestures.

Hold your right hand out, and the quadrocopter hovers a set distance away from you in line with your head and hand. Sweep your right hand, and the quadrocopter moves in the direction your hand's moving. Hold your left hand over your head, and the quadrocopter does a loop. Clap, and the quadrocopter lands.

It sure seems like magic; check out the video below.… Read more

3D video from Kinect used for AR silliness on iPad 2

What happens when you mash up a bunch of buzzword technologies together in one video? Look no further than the below presentation, titled "Augmented Reality 3d Video on iPad with Kinect."

iOS developer Laan Labs yesterday demonstrated a concept app (created with the String AR SDK) that can use video captured from Microsoft's Kinect as augmented-reality content when viewed through an iPad 2 camera. This means that one day you could possibly record a video of yourself on a Kinect camera, transfer the data to an AR card, and send a virtual 3D movie greeting of yourself to someone. This could really unleash creative possibilities for your mother-in-law's next birthday card. … Read more

Microsoft: Kinect now more accurate than at launch

Microsoft's Kinect motion-gaming peripheral is now more accurate than it was at launch, according to Xbox senior product manager David Dennis.

"I think like we showed at E3, like Kudo [Tsunoda, creative director for Kinect] showed with Kinect Fun Labs--a lot of that tech is the advancements we've made in the accuracy, the tracking...being able to show finger tracking in the Sparkles demo he did," Dennis told Eurogamer in an interview published yesterday. He went on to cite Ubisoft's upcoming shooter Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, which allows people to take shots using their hands … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1499: Finally, Venn diagrams come to social networking! (Podcast)

On today's show, we're kind of down on Microsoft Office 365 and poor MySpace's future, but we feel a tiny bit positive about the overlapping circles of nerdiness that could be possible with Google's new Plus social networking beta. Also, find out what you love on Google, if you can, and see all the movies you want for $50 a month. Plus: our new favorite word! Philanthrodorks!

Microsoft sees a role for Kinect in health care

SEATTLE--Microsoft thinks its Kinect motion-sensing game controller will find a spot in operating rooms and doctors offices as it already has in consumers' living rooms.

The software giant, which has been working for years to get health care companies to use its technology, is trying to open doors with Kinect. Today at the Pacific Health Summit here, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, Craig Mundie, showed how medical providers can use the technology to improve care.

In one scenario, patients virtually attend group therapy sessions. But rather than displaying their actual images, Kinect allows them to use avatars, which can capture the movements of the arms, shoulders, even eyebrows, while allowing them to maintain anonymity with the group.

"There's a naturalness to it, even though there's a cartoonish quality about it," Mundie said. "But you get a huge amount of clues."

In his scenario, one patient, listening to another member of the group chat, sat with arms crossed, brow furrowed, and appeared disinterested. That could be a clinical sign of depression worth following.

This isn't just about Kinect, though. Microsoft and other big tech companies such as Google have been courting the health care market for years, prompted in no small part by federal initiatives to drive the digitization of medicine. But those initiatives have so far had, at best, mixed success, in an industry that loves the latest technical marvel in equipment but resists the digitization of patient records. But with so much spent on health care, the lure for tech providers is hard to ignore.… Read more

The 404 845: Where we're allergic to oxymorons (podcast)

Today's "Not cool, man" segment once again goes to The Huffington Post, this time for rehashing the "Wet Hot American Summer" prequel/sequel rumors that first appeared on the Internet years ago. In other recurring segment news, we enjoyed testing Wilson's music knowledge so much yesterday that we're making it a daily thing, and a listener created a legit name for it too, so stick around for the second half to see if Wilson gets full credit.

We're also chatting today about Microsoft's new Decide.com tech forecasting site, how to DJ using just a Microsoft Kinect and a couple software programs, and an Apple patent that might spell the end of multitouch smartphones in the United States.

The 404 Digest for Episode 845

HuffPo teases 'Wet Hot' sequel/preview. Decide.com forecasts price drops and tells you when to buy technology. What's cooler than an iPad DJ? A Kinect DJ. Apple patent might mean the end of multitouch smartphones in the U.S.

Episode 845 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Crave 47: Breathe into your sleeve (podcast)

We've got post-apocalyptic computers served two ways: either as a neo-Edwardian laptop, or a scraped-together tech cave. Also, we explore the next frontier of scratch-and-sniff iPhone cases, magnetic iPad accessories, and high-tech wrist accessories.

Subscribe in iTunes SD Video | Subscribe in RSS SD Video

Buy a Kinect bundle, get a $100 Amazon credit

Those looking to get their hands on an Xbox 360 Kinect bundle might want to check out Amazon's Gold Box Deal of the Day.

For the rest of the day, customers can buy the Xbox 360 4GB Kinect Bundle on Amazon for $299.98. After doing so, Amazon will give these buyers a $100 "promotional credit" that can be used to buy other items sold and shipped by the online retailer.

The Xbox 360 4GB Kinect Bundle comes with Microsoft's console, as well as the company's Kinect motion-gaming peripheral. Owners will also find a copy … Read more

Friday Poll: Most compelling use for natural user interfaces?

Set in 2054, "Minority Report" revealed a future in which natural user interfaces play a major role. A memorable scene features Tom Cruise controlling a large interactive screen with illuminated gloves, gesturing back and forth to navigate through an NUI.

Less than a decade after the movie hit theaters, we now have Microsoft's $150 Kinect accessory for Xbox 360, which provides a similar experience to the one seen in the movie--without requiring special gloves or a multimillion dollar computer setup.

People have primarily used a mouse and keyboard to interact with computers for decades; this seems silly considering that nearly every other computer component has evolved significantly in the same time frame. Now that the Kinect SDK is available for Windows 7, natural user interfaces have more opportunity than ever to change how we interact with computers.

Supportive technology such as speech recognition (which has already matured greatly, as this week's launch of Google Voice Search for desktop computers highlighted), Microsoft Surface, and 3D Immersive Touch are all stepping stones to something far greater in the evolution of computer interaction. It's inevitable that years from now, aspects of these technologies will work together to free us from pressing keys and clicking buttons.

So, what do you think the most exciting possibilities for natural user interfaces are? Vote in our weekly poll. And please be sure to elaborate in the comments section.… Read more