All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen • Hacker News Board

Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

#51

Post by xnzakg » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 6:31 AM UTC

jniedrauer wrote: post #34

throwaway_tech wrote: post #21

I will never forget the first time I went to a friends house and saw the Kinect. Of course I asked for a demo, and my friend proceeded to play a volleyball game, within about a minute he jumped in the air to spike the ball...his hand went right into the ceiling fan. It seemed like amazing technology before/during/after the demo, but I never even bothered trying it after witnessing that.

The same problem exists in VR, except in VR you're blind to the outside world. The chaperone boundary partially solves this, but every VR forum is full of pictures of smashed TVs. In spite of this, the tech is gaining momentum. (Not to mention, it has been life changing for me personally in so many ways.) I don't think this alone is a valid criticism of full body tracking systems.

Honestly a Kinect for VR would be amazing. Could remove some of the "I'm standing in front of the TV waving my arms around" feeling you get with normal Kinect games.

Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

#52

Post by blackrock » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 7:28 AM UTC

I suspect the next user interface revolution will be to use an AI camera to recognize your hand gesture movements to manipulate windows. And to recognize your facial gestures to pop up an interactive helper like Clippy.

Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

#53

Post by redisman » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 7:35 AM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #47

qwerty456127 wrote: post #41

TL/DR but it seems extremely weird to me Kinect is not everywhere. It seems an obvious convenience everybody should and would want to use, like a wheel.

Well, I don't think I own "a wheel". I own stuff that happens to include wheels. What would those be for the Kinect, besides games?

Camera based controls don't really work outside for example so I'm also having a hard time coming up with ideas.

Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

#54

Post by deltron3030 » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 7:40 AM UTC

blackrock wrote: post #52

I suspect the next user interface revolution will be to use an AI camera to recognize your hand gesture movements to manipulate windows. And to recognize your facial gestures to pop up an interactive helper like Clippy.

Nah, AI will calibrate and then calculate your bone movement by measuring tiny vibrations through earphones. Every moving part of you body could be measurable that way.

And why would you move your hands if you don't directly interact with objects, you could track your tongue touching or sliding along your teeth, best interface ever.

Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

#55

Post by rfurmani » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 7:48 AM UTC

deltron3030 wrote: post #54

blackrock wrote: post #52

I suspect the next user interface revolution will be to use an AI camera to recognize your hand gesture movements to manipulate windows. And to recognize your facial gestures to pop up an interactive helper like Clippy.

Nah, AI will calibrate and then calculate your bone movement by measuring tiny vibrations through earphones. Every moving part of you body could be measurable that way. And why would you move your hands if you don't directly interact with objects, you could track your tongue touching or sliding along your teeth, best interface ever.

I’d that doable? Is there a proof-of-concept? It would be an incredible interface, even if it just recognized some basic hand gestures using a bracelet.

Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

#56

Post by blackrock » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 7:49 AM UTC

deltron3030 wrote: post #54

blackrock wrote: post #52

I suspect the next user interface revolution will be to use an AI camera to recognize your hand gesture movements to manipulate windows. And to recognize your facial gestures to pop up an interactive helper like Clippy.

Nah, AI will calibrate and then calculate your bone movement by measuring tiny vibrations through earphones. Every moving part of you body could be measurable that way. And why would you move your hands if you don't directly interact with objects, you could track your tongue touching or sliding along your teeth, best interface ever.

That would be pretty slick indeed. Although it might prematurely wear out my gums and enamels.

But then, what if you have a sudden gag reflex? Or a random epileptic seizure? And the AI thinks you want to do a format /f c:, or a rm -rf / command? Hmm.. the OS had better firewall off those special commands.

Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

#57

Post by daliusd » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 7:52 AM UTC

alexhutcheson wrote: post #24

Just Dance was awesome, and significantly better than its current iterations which only have data from controller accelerometers. None of the other games I tried were compelling, though.

Just Dance was really awesome. I really loved playing it with my daughter.

Real dancing meanwhile is even better. I will never buy Kinect for dancing again :)

Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

#58

Post by jinushaun » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 8:00 AM UTC

thevagrant wrote: post #22

I still use Kinect for my young kids. They love it (Xbox One version). My original Kinect broke so I picked up a second hand one for $10 somewhere. I think Microsoft was on the cusp of a huge opportunity and blew it by listening to hardcore gamers. Kinect type accessory that comes with the console (like Xbox One) should have a big market potential. For myself, I only got interested in it once I had kids and by then,…

It wasn’t about hardcore gamers. I think you forgot that the Kinect made the Xbox cost $100 more than the PlayStation. It probably singlehandedly gave Sony the crown for this console generation.

Microsoft eventually dropped the Kinect and the price and sales of the Xbox picked up considerably.

Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

#59

Post by spacechild1 » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 8:05 AM UTC

While article mentions that the Kinect has been used by engineers, scientists and even the military, it has also been very popular in the arts, e.g. for interactive dance pieces or installations, up to this day!

Re: All the money in the world couldn’t make Kinect happen

#60

Post by askafriend » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 8:10 AM UTC

There's only one reason Kinect didn't happen.

Microsoft dropped the requirement for it to ship with every Xbox.

The moment they backtracked and made it optional, they killed any potential it might have had. Developers didn't see a point in supporting an optional accessory that few would spend the extra money to buy. As a result, no good games came out that supported it, and Microsoft themselves lost the incentive to further develop the software interface and APIs.

It's really that simple.