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iFixit Tears Down Microsoft's Kinect For Xbox 360
alphadogg writes "Microsoft's new hands-free Kinect game controller is packed with four microphones, two autofocus cameras and a motion detector chip that together make for one heck of a complex toy, according to iFixit's initial teardown of the device. 'We haven't been this excited to get our hands on new hardware since the iPad,' says Kyle Wiens, CEO of the company. 'The way that we interact with computers is (finally) evolving, and Kinect is unlike any hardware we've ever taken apart. In fact, the only thing we've ever taken apart that has anywhere close to this many sensors is Pleo, the dinosaur robot.' iFixit describes Kinect as 'a horizontal bar of sensors connected to a small, motorized pivoting base.' The $150 device that Microsoft put hundreds of millions of dollars of research into can be purchased separately from the Xbox 360 or as part of a bundle. A Prime Sense PS1080-A2 is at the heart of Kinect's motion detection capabilities, as it connects to all of Kinect's sensors and processes images of your game room's color and scope before shooting them over to the Xbox. iFixit couldn't immediately identify all of the chips within the box, so plans to update its teardown."
Comparing the wii to the Kinect is absurd. One is an accelerometer, the other is a full-body skeletal pose estimator with probably 20 degrees of freedom. Like comparing a flashlight to an LCD display. The only question now is, will Kinect actually work?
I've had no problems wit hit recognizing me, or any clothing related problems. My kinect sits on my desk, in front of my HDTV, and I have no problem with it reading me. ZERO problem with voice tracking, ever. Sure, it gets mixed up when you do things like cross your arms or hide them behind your back, but it isn't THAT much of an issue. Nothing an update wouldn't fix. And I still hope they release a handheld peripheral to assist with 3D movement in games, or to constantly recognize left/right hands.
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
Well, it does "something" reliably (which might well beat a more ambitious but failed attempt). But compare Dance Dance Revolution style games on the two; with Kinect, you dance and it watches you dance and scores you; on the wii, you just tilt your hand in time with the music. Big difference.
I started iFixit, and I wrote today's teardown. I'm also a long-time /. member.
I totally dig the anti-Microsoft sentiment. But just like with the iPad, we've got real innovation here that came out of a closed environment. Microsoft's got hundreds of millions of dollars invested in visual motion recognition and speech recognition technology. The best reaction all of us in the open source community can have is to use this innovation as a call to action, and as building a block to write open tools. Adafruit's contest is a fantastic start, and I'll be supporting that any way I can.
Got any questions about the hardware that I didn't address in the teardown? Fire away.
Kyle Wiens
$2000 dollars is not enough by a long shot. someone might do it for free though.
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
I also wonder if they've even thought about the logistics. In all the adverts people are using it in massive open plan living spaces, that's just not a realistic representation of most people's homes (especially in countries where housing prices are high and living space has to be maximised, the UK, Japan, other parts of Europe, I can't speak for typical US homes as I only see fictional representations of them on TV and they're all either huge empty white spaces or cluttered messes). Personally the only way I could make this work is to throw away my coffee table - the Wii balance board just about works because the sensor can look over the table at the control and doesn't need to know what I'm doing with my legs, but the Kinect seems to need a massive open space just to get a decent field of view. I think people are going to either be put off by that (if they bother to think about it) or else they'll buy this, realise it's not practical and leave it in the box after the novelty wears off.
Beyond simple games for kids and stuff like video chat, I can't see a practical use for this, and if that's all you're using it for MS could have done it with a £15 webcam instead of a £150 sensor array. That doesn't mean it won't sell by the bucket-load, of course - I couldn't and still can't see a real use for the balance board but it didn't stop it selling millions and me spending the best part of a month hunting one down for my girlfriend the year after it was released.