Microsoft To Back Kinect-Based Startups

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."

Comments

Rip-off central

[tomhudson]

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.

Re:Rip-off central

[Fluffeh]

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.

Re:Rip-off central

[The Askylist]

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.

Re:Rip-off central

[nmb3000]

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.

Re:Rip-off central

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Rip-off central

[tomhudson]

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.

Re:Rip-off central

[Baloroth]

(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?

Re:Rip-off central

[0123456]

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.

Re:Rip-off central

[tomhudson]

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.

Re:Rip-off central

[exomondo]

$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.

Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

A good control scheme allows the player to have fun playing the game. Go back to your cave.

Re:Yay

[larry bagina]

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.

Re:Yay

[CmdrPony]

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.

I don't know, in my experience with Kinect..

[goruka]

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?

Re:I don't know, in my experience with Kinect..

[Hentes]

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.

Am I the only one

[WiiVault]

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.

Re:Yay

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Yay

[Ethanol-fueled]

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.

Re:Yay

[oakgrove]

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.

Fool me once ... fool me twice ...

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

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.

Re:They want to steal your ideas

[oakgrove]

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.