Indian Engineers Modify Kinect To Help the Blind Walk With Confidence

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Indian Engineers Modify Kinect To Help the Blind Walk With Confidence

Posted by Soulskill on Monday February 6, 2012 @10:59AM from the paging-geordi-laforge dept.

New submitter albinobee writes "The Kinect for Xbox 360 isn't only about gaming; it can also be used to help compensate for impaired vision, as a team of Indian engineers is working to prove. A device called viSparsh, still in its nascent stage, is a motion sensing belt that can help alert the blind to obstacles that lie in their path."

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Seems rediculous but... by hellkyng · 2012-02-06 11:01 · Score: 4, Interesting

The more I hear about Kinect the more it makes it seem like one of the more revolutionary products that Microsoft has ever come out with...
1. Re:Seems rediculous but... by timeOday · 2012-02-06 11:10 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I don't find that ridiculous. What's ridiculous is that some people thought it was comparable to the wiimote. Kinect won't displace gamepads, but cheap depth-field sensing is too useful to go away.
2. Re:Seems rediculous but... by interkin3tic · 2012-02-06 11:13 · Score: 1
  
  When I heard about the motion controls on the wii, I thought "This is going to make for some pretty cool games!"
  
  It turned out to be mostly a stupid gimmick, or at best an answer to a question no one asked.
  
  When I heard about the kinect, I thought "Great, another stupid, pointless product no one will use."
  
  Maybe I should buy stock in whatever company makes these.
3. Re:Seems rediculous but... by MimeticLie · 2012-02-06 11:33 · Score: 2
  
  Notice that all of these stories about Kinect don't actually relate to its stated purpose. Kind of ironic that Kinect seems useful for everything except gaming.
4. Re:Seems rediculous but... by jpwilliams · 2012-02-06 11:47 · Score: 2
  
  Actually Microsoft has had plans beyond gaming for the Kinect for some time. They just announced/released the "Kinect for Windows" for Laptops and Desktops, and they have been testing the technology in classrooms and medical facilities, as well as releasing a Kinect SDK for the non-hacker.
5. Re:Seems rediculous but... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-06 13:47 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  What has really made it so revolutionary is Microsoft's open nature about it.
  Lol, Except for the bit where they stated they were never going to release a driver, that using it with a PC voided the warranty, and that use for any other purpose was illegal, and threatened anyone who started making a driver.
  Fortunately, one of the guys they hired to develop(johnny lee) offered 3k of his own money through a front for the first person to release open drivers for it.
6. Re:Seems rediculous but... by dbc · 2012-02-06 15:15 · Score: 2
  
  The technology was developed by PrimeSense. Microsoft's gaming unit brought it into Microsoft. As I understand it, Primesense was initially aiming to make it part of every television as a remote control device. No longer will you lose the remote behind the couch cushions. The robotics community jumped on the Kinect right away, since high resolution distance measurement of the robot's environment is a long standing problem. Out of the box, though, I think the Kinect in its current form has trouble in outdoor environments since the sun is such a strong IR emitter. That is a generic problem with anything that depends on IR.
7. Re:Seems rediculous but... by hairyfeet · 2012-02-06 15:23 · Score: 1
  
  Why would you say that? i haven't gotten to try the new ones but the ones that came with my nephew's Wii were frankly kinda lame. Sure you could do big movements like bowling or tennis, but trying to get precise movements on the RE game he had was more frustration than anything. while I haven't tried the kinect so i have no idea how it does on precise movements I don't see how it could suck worse than them first gen wiimotes. And as to whether they bought it or built it, who cares? Apple bought siri and it seems to be working out for them and its a hell of a lot smarter buy than Balmer trying to buy yahoo.
  
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  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
8. Re:Seems rediculous but... by tlhIngan · 2012-02-06 19:30 · Score: 1
  
  I don't find that ridiculous. What's ridiculous is that some people thought it was comparable to the wiimote. Kinect won't displace gamepads, but cheap depth-field sensing is too useful to go away.
  And that was Kinect's main advantage. Wiimote, Move, they use special controllers and your games are limited to that.
  Microsoft is proving that you can combine Kinect AND controllers. Some games use Kinect's microphone array for voice commands (which does noise and audio cancellation to enable long-range voice recognition). Other suse the cameras to achieve enhanced gameplay. Either way, you can use regular controllers with Kinect.
  So games can be Kinect-required and do everything with motion, or Kinect-assisted, where gameplay is augmented with Kinect features but players use normal controllers. That's what makes Kinect special for games.
  For hackers, Kinect is a really cheap 3D depth sensing sensor. Equipment like that used to cost in the high 4 digits or low 5 digits, so casual experimentation was not possible. These days, a trip to Best Buy and $150 will get you a decent 3D sensor to play with. Cheap!
9. Re:Seems rediculous but... by unixisc · 2012-02-07 05:19 · Score: 1
  
  You seem to be suggesting that modifying it into something to help the blind walk confidently is a bad thing
Congratulations! by multiben · 2012-02-06 11:09 · Score: 2

Well done to the team who worked on this project. I love hearing about positive contributions like this.
Indoor use only... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-06 11:10 · Score: 2, Informative

beings that the Kinect uses unmodulated IR, sunlight will completely wash out the dim IR coming from the Kinect.
1. Re:Indoor use only... by ackthpt · 2012-02-06 12:27 · Score: 1
  
  beings that the Kinect uses unmodulated IR, sunlight will completely wash out the dim IR coming from the Kinect.
  Something to think about .. particularly in areas where mean temperatures tend to be high, so there will be a considerably amount of daytime IR.
  I have one of those cute little office helicopters, with an IR controller. Works pretty badly out of doors in direct sunlight, though pretty good on overcast days, morning and dusk.
  
  --
  
  A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
2. Re:Indoor use only... by nomel · 2012-02-07 08:32 · Score: 1
  
  Your helicopter uses modulated IR. The transmitter probably runs at 40kHz (like a tv remote) with an appropriate filter on the receiver side.
Re:Indian engineers by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-06 11:14 · Score: 1, Insightful

I personally think it's bullshit to even mention the nationality of the engineers in the headline and the article summary.
When it crashes, so do they ;-) by Zero__Kelvin · 2012-02-06 11:17 · Score: 3, Funny

Microsoft has finally embraced and extended the term crash!

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Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Re:Indian? by houghi · 2012-02-06 11:38 · Score: 1

What's the point of saying "Indian engineer" as opposed to just "engineer"?
Because it tells you their nationality.
First line in TFA
New Delhi: Mohammed Wasim is a young helpline operator at India's National Association for the Blind [...]

--
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Re:Indian? by Narmi · 2012-02-06 11:56 · Score: 2

I don't think there would have been any complaints if the story read "a team of German engineers have...".
Why stop there by F69631 · 2012-02-06 12:02 · Score: 1

I like what you did there but surely you can't be satisfied with "Engineers modify Kinect to help the blind walk with confidence"? First of all, there is a lot of redundancy over there! In the context, it's obvious that people are "engineering" something so specifying "engineers" is redundant. We could substitute it with "People" but it's also obvious that people are doing the modification, so we arrive at "Kinect modified to help the blind walk with confidence".
Now that we're done with the redundancy, we still have a lot of problems left. First of all "walk with confidence"? That's accomplished by personal charisma or perhaps some drugs. Uninformative expression. Also "the Blind"? Surely that's too specific as exact same method should be applicable to any sightless thing, such as robots. Let's try "Modified Kinect - A limited substitute for sight?".
Obivously, we're just a few steps away from determining that headline is "Visual sensors can be used to substitute visual sensors", at which point we can completely eliminate the 100% redundant headline and go with a empty string.
Re:Indian? by multiben · 2012-02-06 13:00 · Score: 4, Insightful

That's a pretty long distance grab for the rascist card there. Is it really not interesting to you to know where people come from? We do not all belong to one homogenous mass of humans. We come from different cultures and different countries with different priorities and backgrounds. I think it is interesting to know what research is being done in different parts of the globe - especially when it is such a positive story as this.
Re:Indian? by tomhath · 2012-02-06 13:05 · Score: 1

And the third paragraph: "developing viSparsh under technical guidance of professor Rahul Mangharam of the University of Pennsylvania". So maybe Penn is more important than Indian? It's not clear from the article where they're located, I think it would be more relevant if they had said "Engineers in India" or "Engineers in Philadelphia" rather than their nationality.
Useful for finding objects, or finding gaps by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-06 13:39 · Score: 1

There was an ultrasound torch developed 20-30 years ago, for helping blind people navigate. It was designed to help people find objects, and give different sounds for different objects (tree, hard wall etc.). It wasn't successful, but some people did use it. They spoke to the blind people who did use it, and found that they were using it to find gaps, not to find objects. The design might have been different if it had been optimised for finding gaps.
39 second mark by andy1307 · 2012-02-06 13:53 · Score: 1

At the 39 second mark, was that guy using a using a mac?
Engineers? by Frankie70 · 2012-02-06 15:12 · Score: 3, Funny

Why is this post about engineers, when they are just people?
ACs usually cannot afford Microsoft *any* credit by benjymouse · 2012-02-06 18:57 · Score: 3, Informative

Project Natal was developed at Microsoft Research Cambridg: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=microsoft-project-natal
Microsoft used an Israeli company to develop the actual product hardware. This may be the reason why someone could think that MS just "bought" the entire product. Or it could be an opportunity for ./ MS haters to create a myth that MS cannot innovate.
But this was a MSR project all along.

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Re:Indian engineers by TheLink · 2012-02-06 19:06 · Score: 1

A nice change from developed at Quanta in Taiwan and "the fabrication will be done in China".

Unless of course it will be done in the US in dangerous sweatshops... ;)
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Re:Dork by Jyms · 2012-02-06 19:50 · Score: 3, Informative

They bought it from a company called 3DV Systems. It was then called the ZCam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZCam).
Ob citation by ArundelCastle · 2012-02-06 20:03 · Score: 1

Indeed. While they have improved the camera, the IR seem about the same.
http://support.xbox.com/en-GB/kinect/setup-and-playspace/lighting
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2012/01/microsoft-bets-big-on-kinect-for-windows-but-splits-its-community.ars
Limited usability by flugi · 2012-02-06 20:52 · Score: 1

Kinect is uneffective in daylight. They have to use a custom built kinect variant in order to get the infra camera to sense the projected dots in sunshine. The sun is quite a rival as source of infra light :) It also have hard time detecting shiny surfaces. The dangerous objects and situations make a fine list for the users :)
Re:Indian engineers by unixisc · 2012-02-07 05:20 · Score: 1

In other words, 'Indian jobs being outsourced to the US'?
Re:These are already in wide use by Dutch+Gun · 2012-02-07 11:08 · Score: 1

Horses and buggies were also better and more reliable than the earliest automobiles. I understand the point you're making. High tech isn't a solution for everything, but stuff like this is worth a shot at the R&D stage. You're never really sure that you can't improve a technology until you give it a try.

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Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Re:These are already in wide use by cwgmpls · 2012-02-08 02:51 · Score: 1

Even the most rudimentary automobiles displayed potential advantages over using horses -- longer range, higher payload capacity, higher sustained speeds, and so on. In all of the descriptions of this Kinect hack, I don't hear any description of the potential advantages over using a cane. The only advantage I can think of is it avoids the strong negative social stigma attached to using a cane. If the only problem with canes is social stigma, a social remedy would be much more appropriate and effective than a technological remedy.