Microsoft Working On Kinect 2
itwbennett writes "Eurogamer published a piece on a rumored Kinect 2 system that will most likely launch with the next iteration of the Xbox line, which might be sometime between late 2012 and 2014. Eurogamer says this new Kinect won't be hobbled by the limitations of the USB 2.0 port that the current Kinect uses; instead the hardware will be designed to give the new Kinect a faster pipeline to the system's internals. What this means, says blogger Peter Smith is that 'not only can Kinect 2 read finger movements (high on the wish-list for the current hardware) but it can read lips, too. I don't think they mean this in the sense that it can extrapolate what you're saying from your lip movements, but that it can tell who in a room is speaking by matching lip movement to audio input.'"
"I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you play that"
$Company is working on ($CurrentVersion + 1) of $PopularProduct. The new version is expected to have better $CharacteristicDeJour and will be released in $SomeNumber years from now. This will fulfill the desires of people currently using $CurrentVersion, and enable them to do lots of really cool new things.
/. will be inundated with stories about $PopularProduct no matter how trivial they are, or how many other sites reported on them $RandomNumber months ago.
However the ($CurrentVersion + 1) of $PopularProduct may or may not implement $PieInTheSkyFeature, although this will be vigorously debated by $FanBois and $AntiFanBois - even after the new version has come out.
All that can be guaranteed is that
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Time to grab some popcorn and let the usual fanboys and neckbeards duel it out!
>read lips
From now on my girlfriend is not allowed to game without underpants anymore
So it can tell when I'm giving it the middle finger? I don't have to do it verbally as well?
=================
Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
A Kinect that works from four feet away in a room that isn't lit up like an operating theatre.
Anyone looking forward to Kinect 2...anyone?
So Microsoft has all but closed down their first party studios. Rare is a basketcase. Lionhead has become an object of pity. Turn 10 keeps crapping out failed Gran Turismo wannabes. And Bungie has left Microsoft.
What the hell was Microsoft thinking that they were somehow going to turn the Xbox 360 into some Wii type mass market success just by bolting on some Sony PS2 era EyeToy type motion controls.
No wonder the Xbox 360 is in last place.
So, the question is will it be USB 3.0 or something proprietary.
My guess would be proprietary, so they don't have to worry about it getting hacked this time. Of course, that would also mean that there's a new XBox in the works.
Didn't Kinect come from a company MS bought the rights from? or did they buy the company? Is this the same brain trust or the MS brain trust?
Besides that question, I see this as an extension to the same limited thinking-- they saw nintendo and thought it was solely about capturing motion and that was popular. They see this merely as a new technology and went to throwing money at the same technical problem. Simple technical progression as usual. Is it not obvious MS would do this??? Then have somebody come up with obvious new technical abilities.
Nintendo on the other hand is not predictable and might do something quite innovative, as they have in the past. Nintendo was not trying for 1:1 mapping of motion; their goal is an emotional experience and what can be done to aid in doing that sort of thing. They are not stuck in the gradual progression of 1 technical problem; it is this TOTALLY different perspective that makes them come up with new things even when doing another mario or zelda game - its the same mario with some new ideas but the interaction with it changed a lot and gives a known fun experience in another way, possibly a better more engaging way-- but it is never about the technology itself.
MS always missed this stuff and throws money to make it up.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Who cares. Every game I've seen for the Kinect sucks.
No wonder the Xbox 360 is in last place.
Last place compared to what exactly?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12697975
http://www.winrumors.com/xbox-360-tops-u-s-charts-in-september-rules-2011-sales/
Gotta love the desperate Microsoft PR sales numbers.
Almost as bad as back when they so desperately wanted to claim the Xbox 360 'sold' 10 million consoles in the first year that the flooded retailers with massive overshipments of consoles to the point that there were giant stacks of unsold Xbox 360 sitting around the entire quarter after the holidays. They were so desperate to put out their fake PR 'sales' numbers that they ended up shipping no new Xbox 360 console to retailers for the entire next quarter since stores were filled with so many unsold units.
Although the best has to be the most recent Windows Phone 7 Microsoft 'sales' PR statements. Sales forecasts were slashed from 2 million down to 500 thousand for 2012. The actual sales of Windows Phone 7s came out to be around only 250k or so from retail tracking firms and the Microsoft PR monkeys still tried to flood the tech media with claims of 'unprecedented demand'!
LOL
A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wavebands for news of himself. The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive - you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same programme.
Kinect is shockingly bad.
It needs a massive amount of space.
It has problems with lighting conditions.
It has problems with clothing.
It has problems losing track in the middle of games.
I don't know anyone who was dumb enough to fall for the hype and lies about Kinect who still uses the thing. Let alone actually still has it even hooked up.
Sir, perhaps you should have gone to Walmart on Black Thanksgiving.
Those Kinect games were just about the most sought after items. Seriously, football is passe. Watch the action for the Kinect games at Walmart.
I'm waiting for Kinect 4
No way that this will be xbox only.
and very few systems with it now.
it's:
if( isTroll() == true ) {
feed();
}
Why is that unlikely? Whatever they use will have to be built in to the next XBox.
... and here I thought you could play Minecraft on it.
Damn... might have made the game interesting and gotten me some exercise.
Where is the obvious glasses-less 3D/perspective emulation?
Tracking the primary user's head for left-right movement should yield a standard API for any program to plug into.
The killer app is still MIA.
Hey, Kinect is nice to have third party users for, but this new Kinect2, with it's proprietary USB3-plug-with-added-data-line-just-to-make-it-hard-to-use-it-on-other-systems is why you really have to buy the XboX720 (or whatever they call the next soldering joint horror dedicated game box they bring out). Just because you jumped back on the wagon you accidentally lost control of, doesn't mean you can't build yourself a new, better wagon? If there's more money to be made with a proprietary Kinect2, MS will not hesitate to make it proprietary again. That doesn't mean they will make it proprietary again. It means they will analyze the marketing potential of both options and do whatever they think makes the most money.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
You can already do finger detection with the current device, although it's only working reliably between 500 and 900mm distance:
http://candescentnui.codeplex.com
The current Kinect can already tell who is talking thanks to its four-way microphone array.
What the kinect needs is higher resolution cameras.
So does that pretty much say that the new 3rd generation Xbox is going to be released for 2013-2014?