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Microsoft Kinect With World of Warcraft
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies have developed software that enables control of PC video games using the Microsoft Kinect sensor. Their toolkit, known as the Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit (FAAST), emulates custom-configured keyboard controls triggered by body posture and specific gestures. This video shows a user playing the online game World of Warcraft using the Kinect. Potential applications of this technology include video games for motor rehabilitation after stroke and reducing childhood obesity through healthy gaming."
Anyway, has anyone actually done streaming skeletal recognition over the web yet? Seems that's the kinda thing that would be an interesting addition to Second Life or some of the other "open" virtual worlds.
How we know is more important than what we know.
And, in the final part, I was here, just waiting for a Tauren Paladin to jump into scene and gank the mage while the guy was explaining why it would be a good thing for kids.
Yes, I'm that horrible.
I would love to see a Raid of 25 people using this. It should look like some kind of ballet.
CU, Martin
Awesome post. Thanks for sharing a useful information.
tx for informations, steven seagal
1) Dislocate/sprain something while using this device ...
2) Hire lawyer
3)
4) PROFIT!!!!!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Not quite next one http://www.youtube.com/v/chiW9X5EXEo&rel=0&hl=es_ES&feature=player_embedded&version=3
why not simply go outside and play a REAL LIFE fucking game instead of some shite computer game if your concerns include childhood obesity....
in addition to burning more calories, using more muscle groups, and breathing fresh air, you will also learn to speak to and relate to other human beings, first hand, and learn essential social skills like co-operation and mutual goal seeking...
ffs
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Ah, Youtube, censoring one video at a time. Things like this makes me hate children. Because of those little fucks the internet - media in general really - gets censored left and right. Stupid little cunts!
As a side note... I found when I was heavily into MMOs, I actually lost weight. Crazy, I know... but I wasn't sitting on the couch with a bag of chips in one hand because that would get my keyboard and mouse all nasty. I actually ate better (less junk food) when I was playing because carrots weren't as greasy, I had bought more food from the grocery store so I had more time to play (didn't have to get in the car and run to Wendy's) and could grab a sandwich when I was hungry.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Maybe I'm being lazy, but call me when finger flicks and other small gestures can be used and detected properly. Keyboards and mice work so well because you don't need to exert tons of effort into doing a simple task. Our hands are one of our best features for mimicking any sort of device till you can wire it into your brain. Doing a 25ms reaction with your fingers is a lot easier then with your back. Kinect just seems more like a gimmick and a Wiii too (me too) thing, then something extremely usable.
I could, however, see the Kinect making it's way into the industry sector, specifically for mimicking motorized arms or construction equipment... and also porn industry.
Why is it that you don't wish to protect the children? I bet you're a child molester! If you truly cared about them, then you'd know that children can't differentiate between fiction and reality (such as video games, movies, or pornography) and that they are just a picture/video/game away from becoming murderers and/or rapists! Seeing a nude person could cause them to be scarred for life. That's precisely why everything must be censored or be made extremely difficult to obtain.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Wow...just wow... This has got to be one of the most pothetic things I've ever heard
Calm down ... these kids are not going outside. Maybe we can get them active.
I went the other direction, I started eating Cheetos with a spoon. Get a bowl of sour cream and a bag of cheetos, sprinkle on the cheetos and nom nom.
There are a subset of people that have no interest in other human beings. I for one am too cranky.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
why not simply go outside and play a REAL LIFE fucking game instead of some shite computer game if your concerns include childhood obesity....
in addition to burning more calories, using more muscle groups, and breathing fresh air, you will also learn to speak to and relate to other human beings, first hand, and learn essential social skills like co-operation and mutual goal seeking...
ffs
Posts like this make me wish there was a "+1: Troll" option
why not simply go outside and play a REAL LIFE fucking game instead of some shite computer game
ffs
I don't know...but maybe it's because smacking other people with huge swords and axes is ILLEGAL?
Look at his keybinds, I bet he's a dancer.
I agree. I got back into WoW with Cataclysm. I quit for a few months every now-and-then because of classes. When I can't find time for homework plus wow after my job, I don't login for a month or so. Anyways, yeah, I eat a lot better food whenever I'm gaming constantly Apples for a snack instead of some chips and dip. I also find I'm not hungry as often. I'll look at the clock and notice three hours have gone by, and I "should probably" eat dinner, right after I finish this quest hub. Then it's midnight and I need to go to bed.
Real men (and frost mages) play with a wheel and pedals.
Okay, Slashdot, let's do what you do best and turn WoW-play with unconventional devices from a mere YouTube fad to a full-on institution of social progress. That's right: WoW-play powered by a treadmill, Mountain Dew cans, and buckets of oily skin run-off.
Let's start a revolution.
Let's change the world.
Let's... hey, why's that guy playing WoW when he could be having sex on his Kinect? Urgh... Goddamnit, Microsoft.
And.. I did not mean to capitalize "apple". I hate "Apple" and don't own any of their products.. this scares me.. what does it mean?
Well, aside from 'getting off your lawn', can you cite any way that this would be worse than going outside? The criteria you've left here is pretty weak:
A) burning more calories - This depends on the length and availability of play, doesn't it? Which of the two options would be susceptible to weather? Scheduling conflicts?
B) using more muscle groups - Um, no. Not necessarily. The wireframe is full-skeletal. You could make walking tied to leg movements, for example. You could tie 'attack' to 'jumping' and really work the little suckers to death...
C) breathing fresh air - Indoor air can easily be preferable, especially in an urban setting. And where it is not, windows can easily be opened.
D) learn to speak to and relate to other human beings - Ventrillo. Been there, done that.
E) learn essential social skills like co-operation and mutual goal seeking - Indoor games are usually better at this because they're more structured.
Now for some points of my own:
1) Aren't parents presently required to observe their children at all times when they're outside, due to 'stranger danger'? Would not indoor exercise solutions mean a net gain for those kids?
2) Are indoor and outdoor exercise mutually exclusive? And if they're not, wouldn't replacing exercise-less video gaming with this concept be a net gain as well?
3) Can you think of any ways in which this idea is actually worse than sedentary video gaming?
I'm not liking the way WoW plays with this interface. I'd think, at a minimum that you'd want to use controller-plus-body. There's just too damn many buttons.
Sports titles would be good. Are there any good ones for PC?
Or perhaps Kinect-plus-WiiZapper for some awesome FPS action?
WoW sucks as an example, but surely we can do better...
uh well when i can shoot fireballs in real life i will. that (incredibly palyed out) joke only really works when the game simulates a real life activity, like a video game about running or swimming.
You'd be surprised how many calories a good session with the kinect can burn. My wife's cousins are 16 and 14 and are both cheerleaders (highschool and competitive squads) and even they were sore the next day from playing. Of course the wow controller seemed to only focus on hand gestures so it's a lot less cardio than the xbox titles that exercise the entire body.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
There is nothing to fear unless you start eating Apple product, since that is not that healthy ;)
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
I agree. At least with WoW, it's easy to forget to eat....and .... of course...when I do go to the fridge downstairs...I end up running there and running back....
The policy of using custom input devices to play WoW is as follows:
Every input into the game must be associated with a user interaction. The device delivering the input must deliver the input as quickly as possible when the user inputs the command, in that delaying input into the game is not allowed. Finally, the device must not analyze the state of the game other than if the game is receiving the input when making decisions on what input command corresponds with the user input (or if the command from the user should be ignored or not).
What you can do is:
Set up combos on your input device where a different input is given after inputting the same command, as long as the device doesn't investigate what WoW is doing.
Control multiple computers with a single device, and send commands to multiple computers with a single user input.
Um, are there hot dark elves in this new "Real Life" game you're pitching to me? ~
At least this would get me out of my chair and into motion more. A sign of playing too much is that not only do I know what kind of character he is playing and his approximate level, but also exactly where he is in the Warcraft world.
--The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese
Hmm.. Kinda shows how Everquest 1 and 2 is for adults...
> why not simply go outside and play a REAL LIFE fucking game instead of some shite computer game if your concerns include childhood obesity....
Ah, sounds like a typical jock response. Of course, the typical jock response forgets that even in the best case scenario, no one wants the fat kid on their team (average case: fat kid gets picked on). Maybe you stayed in and played computer games, so you were never in either role and therefore don't remember this.
Why? What's pathetic about making rational choices? nschubach wants to play a game with his/her own time and chooses to optimise food runs in both a time and health-positive way and you complain? If I could do voices, I'd be saying, "Win freakin' win, baby!" in a solid Peter Griffin.
I personally like sandwiches so a lot of my snacking (whether gaming or not) is from that food group. But it's nice to have something pretty tasty and filling that won't get everywhere when playing.
Do you like sandwiches?
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
So is a lot of "prior art" being created so that many of these methods become free to implement, or is it possible that patents on these techniques have already been snapped up and this is just free crowd sourced R&D and fleshing out of the logistics so that only Microsoft and PrimeSense can implement any of this commercially?
Twinstiq, game news
This guy needs to learn some pet control, what a waste.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
Cheetos should only be eaten with chopsticks. Just sayin...
Not at all surprised to see him moving into a sideline with WoW, not surprised at all.
A blog I run for the wealth
Why dont you go outside and talk to people instead of sitting inside posting on slashdot. Crazy i know but you could be actually interacting with people. VOCALLY without a microphone.
I do go out... all the time. I go out and go to work (I even take the stairs up to the third floor office,) I go out and go to the bar some weekends, I regularly go out with REAL people to eat at times too. GASP!. I don't sit at my PC constantly and I don't know where you got that idea.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
ah ah was trying to reply to parent must of clicked something wrong. sorry for the confusion was just trying to point out how ridiculous it is to complain about people not going out and playing a game whilsts they are themselves not going out and posting on a message board on slashdot
This is simply mapping certain motions (detected by the Kinect) into certain keyboard commands, just as the U-Force mapped hand motions to NES buttons. Note that the U-Force was universally rated among the worst controllers and peripherals of all time.
It would be cool if your mage could throw a fireball with a hadoken gesture, but this is currently just "move left arm down to press 1" and "lean forward to press Up".
Seriously, *leaning forward and backward* to control something? Raising your entire arm? Well, I can see how this would help to *reduce* the time kids play games, which is probably good, but completely unrealistic. I can see law suits (in the US of course) related to RSI injuries or just back pain from playing like that.
And in the meantime, the WoW kid is learning essential technology skills.
Anyways, my kids do both. It's not an either/or proposition.
what does it mean?
You secretly love Apple.
That is quite possibly the worst sounding food I've ever heard of. Even Balut can't compare to that.