Oct 30
Who hasn’t dreamed of soaring over a city, dipping between the rooftops, peering into people’s windows? A new simulator allows anyone to have a real-life birds-eye view of London.
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Oct 28
The Xbox One’s original requirement for the Kinect 2.0 sensor to always be connected and active led many gamers to raise concerns about their privacy. Microsoft eventually caved in
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Oct 28
The Microsoft Xbox One will come bundled with a Kinect sensor. Previously Microsoft had stated that the Kinect needed to be on all the time to get the Xbox One to function, but has since backtracked on that. However we’re sure that there are still some users out there who might be a little paranoid about the Kinect’s microphone and camera, and that technically Microsoft could use those tools to “spy” on them and track their movements, at least within the home. Well the good news is that peripheral manufacturer, PDP, has announced an accessory for the Kinect which not only lets you mount the sensor on a television, but does it in such a way that it blocks the device’s camera at the same time.
According to the product’s description on Amazon, the mount will be able to block both RGB and IR cameras and will play nicely with just about any flatscreen television. This should help assuage the fears of those who are worried the Kinect will be used by Microsoft to help deliver targeted ads, although Microsoft has denied that such a thing will not be happening. In any case PDP’s accessory is set for a release on the 4th of December, not too long after the Xbox One has been released, and for those interested in getting their hands on it, you can expect to pay a rather affordable $19.99 for it.
PDP Reveals Kinect Blocking Xbox One Accessory For The Paranoid original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Oct 24
The Xbox One brings a plethora of improvements over its predecessor, the Xbox 360. Microsoft’s next generation console is much more powerful, efficient and interactive. The company vastly improved its Kinect accessory as well, which comes bundled with the Xbox One. The latest Kinect sensor comes with an ultra-wide 1080p camera which lets it track a number of physical attributes, such as the heart rate, as well as see in the dark. A purported leaked Xbox One manual reveals that the minimum distance required by Kinect to operate has been reduced to just 1.4 meters, that’s a little over 4.5 feet.
Kinect for Xbox 360 required a minimum distance of 1.8 meters or 6 feet to operate, that too for single player gaming. For two players, the minimum recommended distance is 2.4 meters or 8 feet. Gamers would often find themselves rearranging things in their space so that Kinect could work properly, particularly if it was hooked up to a TV in a small room. This approximately 20 percent improvement in minimum distance means that gamers, particularly those who live in small apartments or houses, would possibly not have to shuffle things around so much now. Microsoft hasn’t commented on the leaked manual and hasn’t confirmed if the minimum distance has infact been reduced. Xbox One begins shipping November 22nd. [Image via Engadget]
Xbox One Leaked Manual Hints At Kinect Minimum Distance Improvement original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Oct 18
If you have ever seen a yoga class conducted in real-life, or seen one of the instructional videos, basically it involves you, the student, to watch what the instructor is doing and follow accordingly. Unfortunately for the visually impaired, this is out of the question but thanks to a team of computer scientists from the University of Washington, they are hoping to bring yoga to the visually impaired through the use of the Microsoft Kinect device. The program is led by doctoral student, Kyle Rector, and basically takes advantage of the Kinect’s motion detection and skeletal tracking capabilities to detect the user’s body angles, and from there provide auditory feedback on how to perform different yoga poses in real time.
Dubbed Eyes-Free Yoga, the Kinect will base its detection on the desired pose and will instruct the user to change their positioning until the desired pose is reached, and will even give positive feedback once the correct pose is achieved. The instructions will be simple to understand and as it stands, will offer up six different poses such as Warrior I and II, Tree, and Chair. 13 out of 16 participants in the program said that they would recommend the system to others, and that they would all use it again. Rector admits that the Kinect does have some limitations but because of its open source software and wide market availability, that was why she chose it. You can check it out in action in the video above.
Eyes-Free Yoga Is Yoga For The Blind Using The Kinect original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Oct 15
The ability to passively track people within a given space is every retailer’s dream (and every conspiracy theorist’s nightmare). Those dreams recently took a step closer to reality with the debut of a new people-tracking system from MIT.
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Oct 07
Over the weekend, Microsoft’s Vice President of Marketing and Strategy Yusuf Mehdi spoke during a conference via the Association of National Advertisers. His speech, in which he touched on the subject of the Xbox One and advertising, lead to a report in Ad Age stating that the company’s gaming console is “like [a] TV that […]
Oct 06
Microsoft’s new Kinect sensor that will launch with the Xbox One is certainly a powerful tool, with the ability to detect a multitude of things such as age, gender, and etc. through body recognition, but with great power comes great responsibility, right? If you were worried that Microsoft would eventually use the Kinect to start bringing targeted ads in your living room, you can rest assured that won’t be happening, at least not anytime soon, according to Albert Penello who is Microsoft’s Direct of Product Planning at Xbox. According to Penello, he states that there is no one working on such a thing and he is not aware that such a thing being even actively discussed in the first place.
Secondly Penello stated that if targeted ads were to become a reality, you can be assured that the user will have some form of control over it, ending with, “But preventing Kinect from being used inappropriately is something the team takes very seriously.” Those are some legitimate concerns and we’re glad that Microsoft has taken the time to address them, so Xbox One gamers can rest assured, at least for the foreseeable future, but what do you guys think? Will Microsoft eventually introduce targeted ads?
Microsoft Reassures Kinect Will Not Be Used For Targeted Ads original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Oct 03
Microsoft explains how it built a better Kinect, boosted accuracy without sacrificing performance (video)
Posted in: Today's Chili
The Xbox One’s improved Kinect device is looking like an enormous leap ahead of its predecessor, but getting it there wasn’t easy. Designing it took a joint-effort between Microsoft’s research division and the Architecture and Silicon Management (ASM) shop, according to Redmond’s TechNet blog. It wasn’t enough that the designers had to address the original Kinect’s shortcomings either, adding new features presented plenty of new hurdles to overcome. Take the new sensor’s HD camera upgrade, for example. That wider field of view may make using Kinect in a real living room more feasible, but the enhanced fidelity made it harder for engineers to keep smaller objects (like fingers) from disappearing into the background. The team has outlined some of the camera’s new tricks, like ambient light canceling and an improved color camera, in a pair of demo videos. You’ll find both of those, plus a look at how the Kinect processes 6.5 million pixels per second without the Xbox One missing a beat, at the source link below.
Filed under: Gaming, HD, Microsoft
Source: TechNet (Microsoft)
Sep 30
At the Eurogamer Expo in London, Microsoft’s Phil Harrison revealed that the technology behind Xbox One Kinect makes it able to discern two people who are both talking at the same time. It will be able to hear as well as understand both of them and will also be able to see, in a dark room, if their mouths are moving, said Nick Burton who is the lead developer for new technology.
Kinect is also able to detect 25 joints present between six different people, it will measure heart rates as well as map faces to 1,400 points. The sensor even has the ability to recognize who is using the console’s controller. There can be many applications for multiple voice processing, particularly related to TV and entertainment, which are two major selling points of the Xbox One apart from its ability to run games. It will be interesting to see what solutions and services Microsoft offers in the future which make use of the multiple voice processing capability of the Kinect sensor. Microsoft is going to release the Xbox One console in 13 markets, including the U.S., UK, Canada, France and Germany on November 22nd. The console is priced at $499. Pre-order stock has already been sold out at most retailers.
Xbox One Kinect Can Discern Two People Talking At The Same Time original content from Ubergizmo. 
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