Turns out, the home of Mario and Sonic is still a tough world to penetrate for Microsoft’s gaming division, despite its near-decade presence in the market. While homegrown Nintendo and Sony products receive much of the love and Yen, newly-hatched industry outsiders are left to fend for themselves. Having finally broached the one million mark in Japan for its five-year-old console, MS is shifting the focus to its Kinect launch failures. Unsurprisingly, the full-body motion control accessory hasn’t jump-kicked its way into as many Japanese hearts and households as the Ballmer-led company would like, so it’s shuffling the deck at its Japanese outpost in order to spin the strategy a bit differently. Announced via press conference today, Takashi Sensui — former head of the Home and Entertainment division — will now oversee the newly created Interactive Entertainment Business division. Also in the works are some very culturally-tailored IPs for the Kinect platform: the Suda51-produced Codename D and a version of Steel Battalion from Capcom. Whatever the result of this renewed push may be, it sure won’t be long before Microsoft gets to give Japan the old next generation college try. After all, third time’s the charm.
It seems like the folks over at the Flying Machine Arena are finally starting to catch on — those quadrocopters are going to kill us all. Thankfully, after teaching them to juggle and tap out some tunes, the researchers came to their senses and put the flying machines on a Kinect-controlled leash. Instead of flitting about autonomously, the four-rotored nightmares are directed by a puppeteer waving his hands. Movement is controlled by the right hand, while raising the left one tells the copter to do a little flip for its master’s amusement, and a commanding clap makes it sit down like a good little pup. Best of all, if you don’t give it any arm-waving instruction it just hovers and waits until you tell it otherwise. On further consideration, maybe we haven’t been creating our own murderers, but a new man’s best friend — after all, they don’t eat much and can’t chew up your remotes. Check out the video after the break.
You know the old story, right? You come into possession of plans for the Empire’s moon-sized space station, and now they’ve come to capture you. What to do? Well, if you’ve got access to a Kinect, an iPad, and the String SDK, you’re in luck. The folks at LAAN Labs demonstrated a nifty little hack that can turn 3D data recorded using the Xbox 360 peripheral into a Princess Leia-esque augmented reality image playable on the Apple tablet. Check the video below — unless you’re a scruffy-looking nerf herder, that is.
When Microsoft released its Kinect SDK we marveled at the impact it could have on desktop interaction; sure enough, Kevin Connolly’s Kinect Natural User Interface has made our geeky pipe-dreams a reality. His inspiration for project? Not surprisingly, the Minority Report UI (aka g-speak). Similar projects like MIT’s hack do exist, but it’s brilliant knowing that another emulation has been made rather quickly with Redmond’s tools. In a brief video using the Kinect on Windows 7, he demos various ways of manipulating on-screen content with hand gestures and body tracking — neglecting his mouse in the process. It’s still a work in progress, but the results are already quite striking, so take that ancient input device and click past the break for the full demo.
The folks over at Microsoft Advertising are quite fond of their latest brainchild, so much so that they’re calling the Kinect-enabled advertising platform “irresistibly interactive.” NUAds — which snaked the NU in NUI — feeds off our need for interactivity, allowing advertisers to lure us in by enabling points of gesture and voice control. Think the latest Snuggie spot is super cool? Just say “Xbox, Tweet,” and all your friends will know it. Want to know more about Mariah Carey’s latest fragrance? Say “Xbox, More,” and the info is all yours. Wondering where you can pick up a box of Nad’s edible hair remover? Say “Xbox, Near Me,” and you’ll get a text with the location of the closest Nad’s retailer. Want to vote on the hottest new Bratz doll? Give your girl a thumbs up. So Microsoft may have engaged a host of more respectable partners, namely Adidas, NBC, and Coca Cola, for its demo of the voice and gesture-enabled advertising platform yesterday, and NUAds does indeed serve up promotions in an entirely new way, but will it really change how we view the boob tube for good? Check out the video demo after the break, and weigh in the comments below.
Microsoft opened up the Kinect Software Developement Kit to coders everywhere Thursday. (Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com)
Microsoft on Thursday released a software development kit for its Kinect gaming system, and hackers are already testing the limits of what the device can do.
After the release of the SDK, Microsoft invited a group of developers to its headquarters in Redmond, Washington to see what kinds of applications they could come up with for the device. Dubbed “Code Camp,” the developers were given 24 hours to create programs that would interact with the Xbox-based motion-sensing device.
Initially released in November of 2010, the Kinect replaces the traditional Xbox controller with the movements of your actual hands, using a camera that translates motion into controlling the videogame you’re playing. The device was a hit for the company; Kinect sales surpassed10 million units in March.
But the Kinect’s release proved to be bigger than just a hands-free videogame controller. The device’s motion controller opens doors to application across all sorts of fields, from major advances in robotics to medical research. Until now, sensors and cameras used for capturing the motion of 3-D objects were either cumbersome and expensive, or cheap and unreliable. At $150, the lightweight, compact Kinect is capable of capturing real-time 3-D motion at the perfect price.
Initial Kinect application ideas ranged from the bland — such as a human-controlled version of Atari’s Pong — to the nerdy — like the augmented-reality program that drops a lightsaber in your left hand.
The coolest by far, however, was the “Quadracopter” hack, which lets you move a four-propeller-powered helicopter through the air with a mere flick of your wrists, seen below:
Coders can access the Kinect’s video, microphone and depth sensors to build on the low-level data streams taken in by the hardware. They can also access some of the more high-level capabilities like noise and echo cancellation, and skeletal tracking makes gesture-navigation in applications possible.
For major platforms, launching a software development kit is a big deal. When launching a new piece of hardware like the Kinect, building a robust ecosystem of applications is important to attract potential buyers. In order for that to happen, hardware companies need to court the developer community, enticing coders to build different programs for the new device. Recently, Apple has seen the most success in this realm, as its iOS platform contains over 500,000 applications available for download in its App Store. Similarly, Android is catching up with over 200,000 in the Android Market.
What’s difficult to imagine, however, is how Microsoft can build its developer base of Kinect coders when there seems to be little financial incentive for them to join. As Make points out, Microsoft’s developer agreement terms essentially state “you can’t start a business, make money, sell services or consulting” using the SDK.
“Under the terms of the license for this SDK Beta, you cannot deploy applications created with the SDK Beta for use in your business operations,” according to the noncommercial-use terms Microsoft makes developers agree to. “Even if no fee is charged or received in connection with such use, such use in a business is still a commercial use and is not permitted under the SDK Beta license.”
This is arguably one of the biggest stumbling blocks for Android, which is being beaten out by iOS in terms of making developers more money.
Still, the impetus for Microsoft’s SDK release began with amateur coders creating homebrewed hacks with the Kinect for the fun of it. If opening up the SDK leads to more of this, Kinect’s platform could grow much larger.
Of course, Microsoft’s SDK release is initially available to Windows 7 developers only.
We’ve been waiting for confirmation on yesterday’s rumor, about Microsoft’s motion-sensing Xbox 360 peripheral coming to PCs, and now we have it. MS has just now released a software development kit (SDK) for Windows that will allow .Net developers to write Kinecting apps in C++, C#, or VB. We spoke with some developer representatives from the company to get the full details, including just what you can and can’t do with this big bundle of libraries. Follow us after the break for all the info.
Microsoft’s been talking up its forthcoming Kinect for Windows SDK for quite a while now, and it looks like developers might soon finally be able to get their hands on it. According to WinRumors, Microsoft will roll out the beta version of the SDK during a special event on Channel 9 at 9:30 AM Pacific time (12:30 Eastern) tomorrow — something that’s now been backed up somewhat by the Channel 9 website itself, which is simply promising a “special Kinect focused event tomorrow.” WinRumors is also reporting that the President of Microsoft Spain said during an appearance at a conference today that the beta SDK would be available “this week.” So, it certainly seems like things are lining up for a release — it’s just a shame that “Kinect applications” doesn’t have the same ring as Kinect hacks.
Does anybody actually enjoy the laborious process of trying out clothes? The sheer physical effort, the risk of breaking a sweat… it’s just not for us. We’re much more comfortable with virtual reality fitting rooms, which is where Microsoft’s Kinect motion camera has found yet another raison for its etre. Razorfish, the folks who already impressed us with some neat Kinect hacking, now have a new shopping platform that’s said to actually wrap clothes around your frame and thereby provide a 3D preview of what you and they would look like together. The current iteration only shows some giddy ladies exploring the wide world of handbags, but they do look suitably impressed with the system. There are also sharing options via QR codes and NFC, plus the obligatory social networking tie-ins. Skip after the break to see the KinectShop on video.
Microsoft asked us to drop by at E3 to chat up a generically identified “Xbox executive,” imagine our surprise when we found Kudo Tsunoda hiding behind door number six. Wearing his signature shades, Kudo gave us a brief primer on what makes Kinect great, or at least a heavy endorsement of Kinect Fun Labs. While we can certainly dig the bit-sized gadgetry Fun Labs has to offer, we like to dig deeper — will the Kinect hardware ever be integrated into other devices? Any plans for Microsoft’s 3D tracking camera and Windows 8? Kudo did his best to feed our ravenous appetite for answers.
It wasn’t easy on poor Kudo, of course — more than once we saw him glance longingly at his wrangler, a friendly PR rep keeping him from spilling the beans on anything too awesome. Probing about Windows 8 and Kinect produced one such look, and while our man very lightly suggested that Microsoft does more than games — and that the dual-camera device might start showing up on other devices — the big M had nothing to announce at that time. Kudo did go on to say, however, that we can expect to see new, innovative, “oh my gosh, I can’t believe Kinect can do that” experiences at E3 year after year, citing this year’s keynote for some recent examples. While we couldn’t coax any leaks about Xbox or Kinect successors out of the man, it’s good to see Microsoft’s continued dedication to improving the platform.
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