Microsoft To Back Kinect-Based Startups

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Microsoft To Back Kinect-Based Startups

Posted by timothy on Sunday November 20, 2011 @11:50AM from the cheaper-than-going-through-hr-dept dept.

angry tapir writes "Microsoft has announced a program designed to help 10 developers or startups launch businesses around products for Kinect, the controller that senses motion and voice. Developers with Kinect applications for the Xbox or Windows are invited to apply to the Kinect Accelerator program, even though Microsoft does not yet allow the sale of products based on Kinect for Windows."

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Yay by masternerdguy · 2011-11-20 11:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

Oh goodie, more motion control games. A good control scheme should minimize the amount of movement required for me to interface with the game.

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1. Re:Yay by larry+bagina · 2011-11-20 12:17 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  What about utilities? Consider an image viewer program. Displaying porn, naturally. Your hands are probably not free (or covered with lube). What if it did motion detection on your cock? Slowing down (or softening up) means you're bored with the current image so it will show something else.
  
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2. Re:Yay by CmdrPony · 2011-11-20 12:18 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Where does it say they need to be games? Besides, motion controls make a lot of sense for certain things. Note that Microsoft is especially looking for innovators here, and helping get them going by offering $20,000, training and offices. Lots of startups don't have access to such, but have good ideas.
3. Re:Yay by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-20 12:51 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Yeah, if I made it a point to steal other people's obvious ideas and patent them, i'd be "looking for innovators" too. Especially the broke and defenseless kind. Fucking sickening what a once great company has become.
4. Re:Yay by Ethanol-fueled · 2011-11-20 13:07 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Microsoft are already aware of sex-themed software for Kinect, and have rejected licensing and support for that purpose. As others have pointed out ad-nauseum, it's very hypocritical - You can massacre a whole room full of innocent bystanders in Modern Warfare 2, but you can't pinch a virtual tittie?
  
  It's a shame, because Microsoft and its licensees are missing out on so much potential revenue. Your idea would be well-suited to those minigames between stages where both players have to hammer both buttons as fast as they can, and the first one to inflate the balloon or destroy the car won. Except, instead of pressing the buttons, you're jacking off. Against another man, who is standing right next to you. That would be a cool arcade.
5. Re:Yay by oakgrove · 2011-11-20 13:12 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Why bother? To a fanboy no proof would ever be enough. The display text before image patent was filed after Netscape described the process in their browsers release notes. Now tell me how Microsoft didn't read the documentation for their chief competitor's at the time flagship product.
  
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6. Re:Yay by rachit · 2011-11-20 18:27 · Score: 2
  
  It's a shame, because Microsoft and its licensees are missing out on so much potential revenue. Your idea would be well-suited to those minigames between stages where both players have to hammer both buttons as fast as they can, and the first one to inflate the balloon or destroy the car won. Except, instead of pressing the buttons, you're jacking off. Against another man, who is standing right next to you. That would be a cool arcade.
  There is an SNL episode about that (Wii, not Kinect, though)
Rip-off central by tomhudson · 2011-11-20 11:53 · Score: 5, Informative

You get $20,000, but you have to relocate your team to Seattle for 3 months, AND give up 6% of your business.
Forget it charlie brown.
1. Re:Rip-off central by Fluffeh · 2011-11-20 12:00 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  While I also think that this is a bit rough, it may be within the bounds of acceptable for some start-ups. I can imagine that normally VC companies would take a bigger slice of the pie then 6%, but I am also thinking that the 6% is really just the ticket inside the door. If in order to get more money you have to sacrifice more of your stock, then this becomes less and less appealing - even to a one or two man startup with an idea for a cool use.
  The article does come up with a few very interesting apps that are out there - such as giving a doctor the ability to view different x-ray images without having to touch anything. I can imagine that this sort of thing would be VERY useful to an operating room where the doctors aren't supposed to touch anything after they have scrubbed down.
  
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2. Re:Rip-off central by The+Askylist · 2011-11-20 12:07 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  How about sign language input? Surely MS could find it in them to develop an interface to turn signing into text? Not sure how good this Kinect thing is (don't game or use Windows), but that's one useful project they could support.
3. Re:Rip-off central by nmb3000 · 2011-11-20 12:08 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The article does come up with a few very interesting apps that are out there - such as giving a doctor the ability to view different x-ray images without having to touch anything. I can imagine that this sort of thing would be VERY useful to an operating room where the doctors aren't supposed to touch anything after they have scrubbed down.
  Wow, that's the first time I've heard of anything a gesture-based (i.e. Minority Report) interface would be good for. Allowing a surgeon to manipulate an image display without touching anything is just cool.
  As to the costs of joining the program (moving to Seattle, 6% cut, etc), it might be worth it if you get to have face-to-face contact with the engineers and developers of the Kinect SDK. Having the engineering team right there listening to comments, complaints, and suggestions to improve and modify the SDK would be very helpful.
  
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4. Re:Rip-off central by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-20 12:15 · Score: 3
  
  Uhh, surgeons already have highly-trained operating room nurses to help with stuff like that. And unlike some motion-sensing device, these nurses are damn good at their job and function all of the time, especially when a patient's life is on the line. If the doctor needs the fucking x-ray to be moved, the nurse just does it. He doesn't have to stand there motioning repeatedly like an idiot while the device fails to properly detect and act on these motions.
5. Re:Rip-off central by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-20 12:20 · Score: 2
  
  yeah, surgeons took a really long time to figure out how useful kinect would be to them in the OR.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5Ep3oqicVU
6. Re:Rip-off central by CmdrPony · 2011-11-20 12:21 · Score: 2
  
  Besides, 6% really isn't that much for getting $20,000, good training and working with the engineers. Licensing usually costs a lot more and is often out of reach from startups because they just don't have that kind of money. Hell, Apple and Google take 30% just to sell your products on their markets.
7. Re:Rip-off central by kermidge · 2011-11-20 12:51 · Score: 2
  
  If everything comes out of the 20 large, it might could be tight, especially given the size of one's team, but...
  In the old days we'd conspire together on a large house (cities used to be chock-a-block with family housing), 3+ bedroom houses rent for around two grand, general cost of living is not too bad, and the climate is congenial albeit a bit cloudy and drizzly parts of the year. Seems to me offhand that one oughta be able to cover expenses and have enough left over for a few kegs and shrimp for the barbie - every weekend.
  Six percent? Pfui. Seriously, I don't know how things work these days so much, but is this truly a bad deal?
8. Re:Rip-off central by tomhudson · 2011-11-20 12:55 · Score: 2
  
  The $20k will be eaten up and then some in travel expenses + 3 months of motel rooms, rental cars, meals, etc. This is a raw deal.
  Yes, Apple and Google take 30% to sell your products, but they don't OWN 6% of your business (and any future products you come up with). And when you sell an item on one, you're not paying a cut to the other on that sale.
9. Re:Rip-off central by tomhudson · 2011-11-20 13:02 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The relocating for 3 months is a deal-breaker for ANY small team. They'll be losing money b the time they pay for air fare there and back, meals, rooms, car rental, cost or moving all your equipment (computers, screens, big-screen TVs, consoles) both ways, rental of a secure site, work tables, chairs, (what - you were going to just let them "offer" you a convenient place to work out of that they have the keys to? Are you retarded????) etc.
  So - they're out of pocket AND give up 6% for the "privilege" of doing what they can do w/o relocating and being out of pocket.
10. Re:Rip-off central by Baloroth · 2011-11-20 13:19 · Score: 2
  
  You mean for all those deaf people out there who can't use a keyboard but still have the physical dexterity to sign?
  I'm honestly wondering what the point to that would be. Seems like any use case would be far better suited by some other method.
  
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11. Re:Rip-off central by Baloroth · 2011-11-20 13:24 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  (what - you were going to just let them "offer" you a convenient place to work out of that they have the keys to? Are you retarded????)
  From TFA:
  
  The 10 people or startups accepted into the Kinect Accelerator program will spend three months in Seattle working out of the Kinect Accelerator office,where they will receive technical training and support and be mentored by entrepreneurs, investors and Microsoft executives.
  So, does reading TFA mean I'm retarded? Yeah, I kinda did think they were going to offer a convenient place to work out of, since working with Microsoft people is kind of the point. What, did you think MS wants them to move there just for shits and giggles?
  
  --
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12. Re:Rip-off central by 0123456 · 2011-11-20 13:25 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  startups are risky at the best of times and good guidence and training is invaluable.
  Here's two useful pieces of guidance which have been well proven through the years:
  1. Never start a land war in Asia.
  2. Never get into a 'partnership' with Microsoft.
13. Re:Rip-off central by tomhudson · 2011-11-20 14:06 · Score: 2
  
  Sorry, my mistake :-)
  I can't believe how naive everyone is thinking this is such a great deal. You're giving up 6% initially, and since you're going to need more $$$ after the first 3 months, you're going to end up owning less than 6% at the end. After all, it costs a lot more than $20k to get something from prototype to being an SKU sitting in a warehouse somewhere, with proper support in place (technical, sales/marketing, accounting, legal).
  It reminds me of one place I interviewed at this summer. They had a failed project, and a month after the interview, they were "still working on the budget in terms of how many people it would take, etc." What a joke. I took an hour to figure that out, and emailed them back: $420k +/- 20% for the first 6 months, just under a million the first year, 3 year total (costs go up as you ramp up, but income doesn't go up as fast) of ~$3 million. And that was doing it "on the cheap." I also gave them a list of gotchas that had to be checked before anything else was done (one legal, several technical).
  They had thought that they could do it for less than 200k all in in 3 months, then the money coming in would pay for the "much lower cost since it's already developed."
  Their web site still shows the original default HostPapa landing page that's been there since the spring. Is it dead, or is it dead?
14. Re:Rip-off central by tomhudson · 2011-11-20 14:43 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  No, timing is not central. If your product idea will be totally trounced by the competition in 6 months, it's proof you need a better idea, because there are always delays and road-blocks that cause time slip.
  #1 example - the iPad. Microsoft had one a decade before. Amazing how Microsoft so dominated the market that nobody can compete.
  #2 example - Android and iPhone. Microsoft had been in the mobile market for so long that there wasn't room for even one competitor, never mind two.
  #3 example - Linux got onto netbooks faster, and so totally dominated the netbook market that even trusty familiar XP couldn't gain a toe-hold.
  In other words, from the success of the iPad, Android, and iPhone, and the ongoing failure of Linux on netbooks, we can see that timing is not as critical as having something that is usable. A crappy rushed product in 3 months won't beat a good product in 12 months. All your crappy product will do is make people avoid the better iteration 12 months down the road, in favor of your competitor. And kill you with restocking fees.
15. Re:Rip-off central by exomondo · 2011-11-20 14:46 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  $20k is not even semi-serious money for a start-up - especially considering that, with the competition, you're going to be at least at the working prototype stage, in which case you should be looking for first-round investors, not seed money.
  This program is seed money (as well as equipment, office space and mentoring) to develop a prototype to present to investors, and if you'd bothered to actually read the page detailing the program you would know this and wouldn't be posting rubbish like this, it's really not that hard to find out.
16. Re:Rip-off central by exomondo · 2011-11-20 15:15 · Score: 2
  
  Do you really believe that given a choice between 100 groups that have a prototype, and 1000 that don't they won't pick all 10 from the 100? Doesn't it show which teams are more likely to succeed, and which ones are just blue sky with no ability to execute?
  No, it doesn't show that at all, having a prototype for an idea is not necessarily better than just having a good business case, if you can't show a proper business application for your prototype then what good is it. Not to mention this program explicitly states that the goal of the program is to develop the prototype and that if you have a prototype already then this program is probably of little use to you. It's common sense and basic reading comprehension, why are you having so much difficulty with it?
17. Re:Rip-off central by oakgrove · 2011-11-20 15:58 · Score: 2
  
  So then apply and if you aren't picked, finish it anyway. What is your problem? Now you went ranting how Microsoft won't provide their services for everyone that applies, but only to the projects they like best.
  Are you really that dense? 20,000 dollars is not even close to enough money for it to make any sense whatsoever to pick your team up, go to Seattle and shack up with a bunch of other rubes like some nerd version of the apprentice for 3 months for the off chance that you might be the lucky schlub that doesn't get voted off the island. This is a stupid idea for anybody through and through. It reminds me of the lottery. A game where a whole bunch of stupid people make one stupid person look really smart.
  
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18. Re:Rip-off central by AuMatar · 2011-11-20 16:08 · Score: 2
  
  6% for 20K acceptable? 20K will pay for 2 developer months- 3 if your devs are cheap. You're going to pretty much immediately need a new source of funding, which will cost more dilution. This isn't a good deal, it's a complete ripoff. If you're in a state where such a small amount of money is worth giving up equity, keep your day job and run it as a side project.
  
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19. Re:Rip-off central by AuMatar · 2011-11-20 16:47 · Score: 2
  
  Or sign to text translation. Limited usage and I see low commercial viability, but it would be interesting.
  
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Wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-20 11:54 · Score: 5, Insightful

A good control scheme allows the player to have fun playing the game. Go back to your cave.
1. Re:Wrong by Dahamma · 2011-11-20 14:37 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  You clearly haven't tried the Kinect. Currently it satisfies neither of those.
2. Re:Wrong by Teeroy32 · 2011-11-20 16:46 · Score: 2
  
  what, my gf, my daughter and I have lots of fun playing kinect, shits all over wii, least we don't have a problem with controllers flying across the room
  
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3. Re:Wrong by Dahamma · 2011-11-20 17:34 · Score: 2
  
  Ok, my comment was slightly harsh :) What games have you liked? I have tried a couple and they are awful. Two examples:
  Kinect Adventures: brain dead version of dodgeball (but where you try to get hit). Fun for about 3 minutes. And a whitewater rafting game where you control a raft by leaning and *jumping*? Seriously?
  Forza 4: basically you sit in front of the TV holding your arms out to steer. The missing part? Pedals! it can't detect that, so it just decides to accelerate & brake for you. Even stupider is the "head tracking", which changes the view based on you turning your head left and right. Sounds like a great idea, except that if you look left, you can't see your TV! Amazing...
  I'm sure some of the dance games can be fun if you are into that, but that's a pretty niche market.
They want to steal your ideas by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-20 11:56 · Score: 2

They just want to steal your ideas and patent them so they can keep the shakedown gravy train rolling. I read the list you gave barnes and noble. Practically every patent on it was a stolen idea that had been done elsewhere first. And you think I'm going to give you front row seats for my ideas? Fat chance.
1. Re:They want to steal your ideas by larry+bagina · 2011-11-20 12:41 · Score: 2
  
  It's no worse than Y Combinator.
  We make small investments (rarely more than $20,000) in return for small stakes in the companies we fund (usually 2-10%).
  
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2. Re:They want to steal your ideas by oakgrove · 2011-11-20 13:46 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  So MS gets to see everything you have before they hand you off to some other company. The company that has been caught red handed filing patents on other people's ideas gets to see the cream of the idea crop for kinect development then they get to just stew on it. Based on their obvious propensity for dishonesty, they are almost certainly going to be poring over everything you've shown them searching for any little thing they can use to exploit. No fucking thanks.
  
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I don't know, in my experience with Kinect.. by goruka · 2011-11-20 12:19 · Score: 4, Interesting

My experience programming Kinect is not very good..
It fails to detect a very large range of scenarios and poses and goes crazy with objects around the studio thinking it's persons. Put your arms together, show your side or move fast enough and it will get confused.
It's really easy to make it show broken poses and seems only designed for tracking people front-facing it directly with arms stretched outwards..
Even the unofficial opensource SDK does much better at keeping track of you than the real thing. Not to mention the enormous input lag.
So, is it me or has Kinect been hyped enormously for its rather lacking technical capabilities?
1. Re:I don't know, in my experience with Kinect.. by Hentes · 2011-11-20 12:57 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  It seems to me that you have problems with the official software and not the hardware itself. And the official software was optimised for gaming, not for nerds at home hacking the device.
2. Re:I don't know, in my experience with Kinect.. by Nerdfest · 2011-11-20 12:59 · Score: 2
  
  I find it a bit hyped. The lag is still quite bad. The XBox's use of it for control is especially bad, using pauses in locations as opposed to a 'push' or some other motion to select something. It's slow and imprecise.
For a moment there... by MisterMidi · 2011-11-20 12:22 · Score: 2

I misread the headline and thought Microsoft was starting Kinect-based backups.
Am I the only one by WiiVault · 2011-11-20 12:33 · Score: 3, Interesting

who is not that impressed by Kinect? Its a great concept, but between the noticeable lag and issues it has with movement recognition I find most of my Kinect games don't see much playtime when my friends come over and try it for the first time. Kudos to MS for trying something fresh and new, but I just don't think it makes games more fun, or control "better" and instead tends to make me wish for a controller or keyboard. Perhaps its just that programmers haven't figured out how to get good results, but after a year on the shelf I think it might just be not quite up to the task of being a primary interface peripheral.
Fool me once ... fool me twice ... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2011-11-20 13:29 · Score: 5, Insightful

Well, back in 1990s developers fell over themselves to develop applications for the new fangled thingie called MS-DOS. They had a slew of killer products. Lotus-123! Harvard Business Graphics. Word Perfect. dBase III. One by one Microsoft also entered into the same market segment and used its control over the platform to screw the developers and bankrupted them. They were fooled once.
Then came Mark Andreeson. He thought, "may be if I give my product, the browser, away for free and try to make money by selling tools to create the web browser, may be I can survive". But Microsoft priced its browser below zero and killed his company. The developers were aghast. But they were fretting and fuming but could not do anything about it. Microsoft can just issue a press release saying, "We are thinking of doing XYZ" and the venture capital for startups trying to develop apps that do XYZ vanish like a curl of smoke. They were fooled many times more than once.
Now, with a plethora of systems available, from Android to iOS to linux to simple plain HTML you think developers would trust Microsoft as far as Ballmer can throw a chair? No way buddy. No way.

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1. Re:Fool me once ... fool me twice ... by nickmalthus · 2011-11-20 14:09 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Yes, the company Micro$oft licensed the Kinect technology from Open Sourced the platform at openni.org and Asus has already has released a Kinect competitor called the Xtion Pro. If someone has a good motion capture product idea they can develop it independently of M$. This is just a ploy by Micro$oft to the troll the community for promising future product ideas so that they can patent the most promising ones for themselves.
  
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Kinect - Gathering Dust In Junk Closets Everywhere by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-20 14:24 · Score: 2, Interesting

The only people dumb enough to buy Microsoft's Sony Eye Toy ripoff were the same idiots who jumped on the dead HD-DVD format.
Both are now sitting unused in those people's junk closets.