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Microsoft Working On Motion-Sensing Camera For the Xbox 360

Posted by Soulskill on from the and-they-promise-not-to-watch-you-and-laugh dept.

The Wall Street Journal reports on the motion-capture technology Microsoft is rumored to be working on for the Xbox 360. "Unlike the Wii, the Microsoft camera won't require users to hold any hardware to control on-screen action, the people familiar with the matter said. The camera would sit near the television and capture when players move their hands, legs or head." The Guardian Games Blog points out that we've gotten a look at this technology before, from a company called 3DV, which was reported to be talking with Microsoft earlier this year. Many expect the specifics of this technology to be revealed at E3 early next month.

4 of 68 comments (clear)

  1. Face Recgonition and Motion Sensing by MoldySpore · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is actually a fairly cool bit of technology. My girlfriend recently got a crazy expensive webcam for herself. I don't know the model # off the top of my head but it is the one of their upper level models that has the Carl Zeiss Optical technology in it. Bundled with the camera comes face recognition and motion sensing software. It locks in on her face and when she moves around it follows her face so that she is never out of frame. It is actually quite accurate and rarely loses track of her.

    Not sure how much people who would be using this with the XBOX would be moving around, but it is generally a pretty neat tech.

    --

    "I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."

    1. Re:Face Recgonition and Motion Sensing by caffeinemessiah · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It locks in on her face and when she moves around it follows her face so that she is never out of frame. It is actually quite accurate and rarely loses track of her.

      From a video processing point of view, this is not too hard when pretty much the full frame is filled with one prominent face, which is looking head on at the camera and usually not too far from it. Playing video games is a whole different cup of tea, and some of the reasons why this might not work so well are:

      1. You're usually very far from the screen, so the face/body is less evident in the scene, although this isn't a huge problem.
      2. There are usually people sitting next to you on the couch, so the algorithm has to keep track of multiple faces/bodies and track only the relevant one (or track as many people as are playing). This is much harder to do accurately and continuously.

      Well then again, it might work well on that massive, 8-core Cell proces---oh wait, that's the PS3.

      --
      An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
  2. No good. by Millennium · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There's a reason that even Hollywood still relies on external sensors for motion capture: machine vision is decades away from being able to do stuff like this. There is simply no way this will be any good, but then, I think that's part of the point: reinforce the 360 fanboys' perception that motion is bad by giving them a bad controller for motion.

  3. Re:The motion of the XBox through the window by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    David Gerard's "Easy Does It" Comedy play book:

    1) Choose a target.
    2) Pick a negative trait or story about that target.*
    3) Spin the negative into a positive.
    4) Brag about the positive to appear like a zealot/troll.

    Works every time, if the reader's IQ is under 90.

    *Negative stories can easily found at BoycottNovell.com, provided by Roy Schestowitz, or from Twitter's journal. Both authors are personal friends of David.