Hasta La Gadget!

Customers can step right into cyberspace until April 19th at Shibuya’s Parco department store. Promoting the 3D release of “Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex Solid State Society” web company Kayac Inc installed a large game booth that lets players immerse into the game and float in space.

The game uses the microsoft Kinect sensor to let players use gesture and movement to travel through space in a bid to capture Tachikoma. Controls use the whole range of movements from twisting to turn and moving forward and back to shift perspective then using an arm movement to zap and capture the characters. With the installed wrap around screen the effect is pretty absorbing and really feels like you are floating around.

The store itself has various anime goods and a display of some original shots from the Ghost In The Shell movie also for fans to see.

Users twist and turn below in the original video from Kayac:

The game is on the 5th floor of Parco, Shibuya in the S.A.C Premium Shop until April 19th.

Thanks to www.asiajin.com

Can the Xbox Kinect can help surgeons? A number of doctors in Canada thing so.They’ve been using the gesture-based peripheral to access photos, helping guide the surgery.

The doctors needed to access photos without having to touch anything. This allowed them to perform surgery more quickly, without having to stop to wash their hands. This may well be the first time ever that a hospital used a video game console as a guide in surgery.

The doctor has also claimed that he plans to use the Kinect more often in both surgeries, and other areas in the hospital.

Via TG Daily

The latest generation of gaming gadgets do some nifty tricks, and one of the niftiest they might perform is assisting the realm of medicine. Microsoft’s Kinect sounded like a candidate for surgery, and this month real-life surgeons have actually put it to use — Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, Canada rigged the Xbox 360 depth camera to its medical imaging computer. Now, doctors don’t have to scrub out to manipulate an MRI scan, or even appoint a peon to the task — rather, they simply raise their bloodied glove, and dive into the digital imagery with a wave of a dextrous hand.

Meanwhile, the American Optometric Association has expanded upon its initial praise of Nintendo’s 3DS, saying the autostereoscopic 3D handheld “could be a godsend for identifying kids under 6 who need vision therapy.” Though Nintendo’s warning labels had originally incited a bit of fear among parents, the organization says that kids who can’t experience the 3DS to its full potential may have amblyopia (or other vision disorders) that can be more easily treated the earlier it’s caught, though one doctor interviewed by the Associated Press contends that kids with amblyopia may not know what they’re missing to begin with — so don’t necessarily expect a panacea, folks.

Kinect keeps surgeons on task, Nintendo 3DS might assist optometrists with diagnoses originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Mar 2011 07:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Joystiq  |  AP, The Canadian Press  | Email this | Comments

They’re getting ever more practical, these Kinect hacks. Two days ago it was creating 3D models in free-space, today it’s letting the blind see. Well, not really see, but better navigate through and stay informed about their environment, at least. A Kinect is attached to a helmet and connected to a backpack-mounted Dell laptop. Also connected to the laptop is an Ardunio-controlled belt that has three separate regions of vibration and a Bluetooth headset of the “obnoxious guy talking loudly to his stock broker on the train” variety. Finally, thanks to a little C#, the whole package allows someone to walk down a hall and receive verbal and tactile notifications of obstacles in their path. Wearers can also receive navigation to different areas and, thanks to ARToolKit identifiers stuck on the walls, even have signs read to them. It’s called NAVI (Navigational Aids for the Visually Impaired), created by Michael Zöllner and Stephan Huber at the University of Konstanz, and it’s all demonstrated for you below. Dig that hat, man. Dig that hat.

Continue reading NAVI hack uses a Kinect to let the blind see, wear awesome headgear (video)

NAVI hack uses a Kinect to let the blind see, wear awesome headgear (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Mar 2011 14:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink SlashGear  |  University of Konstanz  | Email this | Comments

Kinect hacked to control Tesla coils from a safe distance (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Mar 2011 17:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Adafruit Industries  |  Tom Scott  | Email this | Comments