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Some Windows 8 Laptops May Come With Built-In Kinect Sensors
An anonymous reader writes to point out reports that Asus is "working on a new laptop that will include Kinect gestures and will be compatible with Windows 8," and adds, "What does this mean for the consumer? Portable gestures in Windows 8!" Wired has an article based on the same report, which mentions also the prospect of devices incorporating alternative gesture-tracking software from SoftKinectic and others.
I hope they make it have fine enough resolution it will work for challenged people.
With the big changes in windows 8 I don't think alot of people will want it right a way.
What really has me excited about Windows 8 is Kinect. I think we're going to see a big transformation in the landscape of user interface in the next several years pushing us towards device-less interfaces.
Granted, this stuff isn't a replacement, it's a supplement. So don't think I'm preaching the death of touch or mouse and keyboard. The more options of well developed and useful interfaces we have the better.
It's ok, someone will make a Metro app that unlocks the loader with a middle-finger gesture. (The devs just need a new name because "Angry Flipped Birds" won them a C&D...)
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
With all the throwing around I hope these laptops will have an SSD instead of an HD.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Kinect in the living room makes sense - voice/gesture commands in place of a remote control is surprisingly useful (when it works). On a laptop though -- what does the Kinect give that a touch screen can't do better? I mean outside of adult entertainment...
On the other hand, if it can support gestures with your eyes, then it might be useful. For example, gaze at a specific window/monitor and having it automatically come into focus could be quite a convenience ... but I don't think we'll see that for a while.
BSOD - you can simply bang your head on the table to restart your computer!
someone talking to themselves walking down the street would have been considered insane or on drugs
now, they just have a bluetooth headset on and are perfectly normal
today, someone sitting alone in the park making random jerky gestures would be someone on drugs, or insane
in 5 years, that's just someone using their kinect-enabled laptop
it's all part of technology's goal of virtualizing the experience of tourette syndrome and schizophrenia for us all
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Windows8... With a touch inspired graphical interface... And someone thinks the solution is to include a touch less hardware interface...
I'll skip all the jokes about keeping away from Wwindows... Or a hands-off approach to management, etc. (or not...)
Metro UI is touch based and most laptops don't have touch screens and I hope windows 8 will have more of the older windows 7 desktop the betas cut to much.
- Swing your left arm across your chest;
- Block your left elbow with your right hand;
- When you block your elbow you have to say "toe";
Computer shuts down and powers off.
(Courtesy of John Peter Sloan and Dave Dickens )
Mastering the English language is fucking easy: all you have to do is to put an f* word in every fucking sentence.
I've been making gestures MS products for years. Call it feedback. Hell, I feel like making a gesture right now. The big change? Now we can be ignored 4 ways (keyboard, mouse, sound, gesture).
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Some people were complaining about Siri, saying that for some reason they didn't want to be seen out in public, talking on... a phone.
Well I'd take that over being out in public with my mobile device looking like I was being attacked by an invisible cloud of bees.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I typically have someone in the row ahead of me recline as far as humanly possible, which can be frustrating but is tolerable. I hope I don't get someone sitting next to me who is flailing wildly trying to perform a copy and paste shortcut.
The problem is that not all Windows 8 laptops will have this, so it will be an afterthought. When will Microsoft learn from Apple? If you build a platform that requires certain sensors, developers will use them. Otherwise...well, it will just be a gimmick.
so you want to locked hardware and AIO's on the desktop.
Also add $100 to each video card for the UEFI rom.
Way to kill an excellent concept, MicroIdiots!
Voice control largely failed because nobody wanted to be caught dead talking to his computer and it just doesn't work at all in office environments.
Putting gesture control into notebooks must have been the winner of the "stupid idea of the year" contest, and for some reason it got mixed up with the actual product plan.
Seriously, on a train, in the airport lounge, on the airplane - that's when you really wish your notebook had gesture controls, right? And when you pitch your product to your business partners and give a crucial presentation, that's exactly the moment where you want to rely on more-or-less reliable gesture controls instead of a mouse or keyboard click or remote control.
Totally. The only place dumber than notebooks would've been the Zune.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Considering most MS Windows lusers, they'll probably be comforted knowing they can't load any "rogue" software. Even though there will be plenty of security holes for malware to get through, including Microsoft signing it.
(Yeah, mod me down microserfs. I don't care!)
"I see you're looking for *PORN*. I will open a Bing window and help you search."
(5 minutes later)
"You appear you have found what you were looking for. Have a nice evening."
"OW!", that fucking hurt :S
I think the biggest advantage to this is that the Kinect will be able to read gestures so you can act like you have a touch screen without having to pull your hands too far from the keyboard or get your finger prints on your screen. It would also be useful to raise you hand four inches off the keyboard and use an imaginary mouse.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
Windows 7 also supports UEFI so you can still run Windows 7 on these locked machines too
http://saveie6.com/
and you will pay $10 a gig and $20 meg roaming on 3g / 4g
"Lusers". How...contemporary. I like how you're not at all embarrassed by your throwback behavior though. You're a real tiger!
Maybe, but at least in Windows you can install apps regardless of what permissions they want and allow or disallow when they try to use the "permission". And at least you can change what they get access to after they've been installed.
It's amazing how people assume that we'll keep using technology to do the same things as the technology evolves. We won't.
Think outside the box. Gestures aren't going to be so black and white and you're going to be able to do new, complex tasks that you hadn't even thought of doing before. Creative types will really love this.
when did cameras become classified as "Kinect Sensors"?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Kinect and WebGL might make all those POV porn movies a lot more interesting. It could also give a new metric for Google over just how much fapping a web site generates.
You may look silly waving your hands around in the airport, but in some work enviroments, giving commands by gesture is standard proceedure.
I think the army will eventually move toward bluetooth headset type device with with a forward facing camera that recognizes gestures.
Combine this with a HUD monocle that has eye tracking and SIRI like voice control and you have the perfect hands free user interface that maps to basic human actions well enough to use when you're operating with your stress incuded monkey brain.
You're absolutely right. He should totally call them "n00bfagz," since that's "contemporary."
1) Consumers and OEMs will demand downgrade rights to Windows 7.
2) Corporations will refuse to upgrade to Windows 8.
3) Steve Ballmer gets fired.
Remember, you heard it here first.
x86 based Windows 8 machines will be able to boot any OS you want them too. Only ARM based Windows 8 machines will require secure boot, and that's only if the OEM wants to have the Windows 8 sticker on the machine.
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/114173-windows-8-secure-boot-calm-down-microsoft-is-simply-copying-apple
I can think of a few useful applications that have nothing to do with gesture recognition; the z-depth would allow you to cut the image of the user away from the background, which could be useful for videoconferencing if you want to chat with someone but don't want them to see your surroundings or the other people in the room with you.
Close-field Kinect on a laptop would probably allow you to do very accurate head / eye tracking, so you can do things like the '3d window' effect demonstrated in this video by Jonny Lee.
3D object scanning. Microsoft already have a version of this for the Xbox with the Kinect Fun Labs, but it's rather limited in resolution. A close-field sensor would provide better resolution.
It's possible you could use facial recognition for security. Unlike most webcam-based facial recognition systems, this couldn't be fooled by a paper mask.
When you install Linux on it, the sensors will actually become useful!
I just attached a nyko zoom to my kinnect (set of lenses mounted in a frame that clips over the kinect) - and that knocked a very handy third off the minimum distance I need to be.
Aside from expense and size, there's no reason you couldn't have a kinect with motorized or even swivelling lenses.
Were plenty of other annoyances lurking about after that. Network file 'sharing' (shares/CIF etc) was a world of pain and registry hacking.
3d screens seem to be limping onto the market, but with a 3d camera... you're right, it's just going to be used for porn...
If I can sit down and watch a movie or check my email without picking up the remote or touching the keyboard. I think that I would have reached a higher state of being. A true American :)
It's because W8 platforms will come with new devices. And these new devices will require drivers. And those drivers will magically be unavailable for prior versions of Windows, and Linux - as prior versions of Windows have done less successfully. It will be some thinly veiled part of the logo requirement. Sometimes it's because when you get a new PC your printer/scanner/MFD manufacturer would just prefer you buy a new one, or has gone out of business or whatever. Sometimes it's because the drivers for the device were contracted to out a dual-blind programming subsidiary of Microsoft under terms that prohibit disclosure of the hardware interface. I first ran into this one with SoundBlaster in the 1990s, and Winmodems and Broadcom latoptop wifi chipsets come immediately to mind. It was enough to put me off of programming for Windows forever. The why of it is irrelevant however.
While they've promised W8 will work on legacy platforms in some form, they have worked quite closely with their "hardware partners" - including HP, Dell, Acer, Intel and others to ensure that a shipped W8 platform in its fully developed hardware incarnation will not and cannot fully support use of any other operating system ever. The Linux geeks will do their best to help you and reverse engineer it (for their own purposes of course, but sharing), but that will probably take three years or more - when the next generation is due - because Microsoft has learned some lessons about obfuscating hardware interfaces and filing patents along the way. The Linux geeks are really, really good. If they weren't Linux wouldn't run 91% of the top-500 supercomputers in the world. But there are limits to what they can do against determined opposition. The Windows geeks won't help you because they've long since moved on - they know which side of their bread has butter on it.
It's one thing when a rollback will deprecate some legacy thing like parallel ports or SNAP printers. It's quite another thing when even the motherboard USB ports or sound or video or network can't be enabled in XP or W7 or Linux. And that is what we're looking at.
Be forewarned that if you buy a W8 PC you're likely stuck with it on W8 because you're just not going to get it to fully work with something else. If you demand flexibility but want W8, buy a Linux PC and install W8 on it (after properly licensing W8, of course).
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