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.

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

[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.

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.