Microsoft Kinect 2.0 Specifications Leak, Includes Support For USB 3.0 49
An anonymous reader writes "Whether or not you're an owner of Microsoft's Xbox 360, chances are you find the Kinect accessory intriguing, since you don't even need the company's console to use it. That's why there's so much excitement surrounding the console's successor, codenamed Durango: it will feature Kinect 2.0, the specifications for which allegedly leaked today. The new device will reportedly be able to track players with a height of one meter, feature a mode for both seated and standing players, detect hand states (such as open or closed), as well as extra and rotated joints. As for improved features, it will be able to supposedly track six rather than two active players, occluded joints, and sideways poses. This will all be possible thanks to an increased field of vision, 1920×1080 color stream, 512×424 depth stream, an added infrared stream, USB 3.0, and 60ms latency."
Upcoming XBox Bundle? (Score:1)
I heard a rumour the other day that the upcoming XBox may come pre-packaged with a Kinect and I couldn't help but wonder why anyone would think that would be a good idea.
Have there been any "gotta have it" applications for the Kinect?
Re:Upcoming XBox Bundle? (Score:5, Insightful)
The goal behind including the Kinect 2 with every xbox 720 is for precisely that reason: game developers can't afford to devote much resources to Kinect 2 support because few people have them relative to the overall market (roughly a third of 360 owners). By including a Kinect 2 with every xbox 720, developers can rely on every gamer on that platform supporting Kinect 2. Suddenly what was an option can now be a requirement. We should actually see more innovation in this regard as a result.
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Specious at best, by that logic there should have been a long and varied history of light-gun based games from the 80s onward.
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Console addons have historically suffered from insufficient market penetration and limited developer support.
In other words, devs don't make use of them because not enough people have them, because not enough games use them.
Chicken, meet egg. Egg, meet chicken.
If something is standard instead of an addon, devs will often support, so long as it makes sense for their game. Also, as Guspaz noted, the console manufacter can coerce them to support it even when it doesn't make sense, t
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We'll have to see if it can be disabled. I have a Kinect, and various dashboard updates have made it so annoying that I haven't turned it on in months.
When the dashboard paid no attention to it and you had to fire up a Kinect-specific title for it to do anything other than serve as a mic, it was mostly fine. But since the dashboard got support for it, it's constantly triggering on words and motions that nobody intended it to notice.
If the XB720 (or whatever) doesn't require a 24x7 internet connection and
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Hm. I don't have that controller problem, perhaps because I've got both the XBox IR remote and the "smart glass" app.
I did actually try what you're talking about, but it was unresponsive enough that I really do prefer the IR remote.
YMMV, obviously!
Re:Upcoming XBox Bundle? (Score:4, Insightful)
The goal behind including the Kinect 2 with every xbox 720 is for precisely that reason: game developers can't afford to devote much resources to Kinect 2 support because few people have them relative to the overall market (roughly a third of 360 owners). By including a Kinect 2 with every xbox 720, developers can rely on every gamer on that platform supporting Kinect 2. Suddenly what was an option can now be a requirement. We should actually see more innovation in this regard as a result.
Based on the Wii, you fill get a bunch of games that would play fine on a gamepad, but they make it so you have to use the kinect. Which I personally find annoying. I prefer to game with a gamepad (or mouse & keyboard) over waving my fat arms around like i'm having a heart attack or something.
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On the Wii you don't have to move around much - it doesn't actually track your whole movements like Kinect. Didn't you figure out how to do most the stuff without literally doing what they say? Who really wants to move around like crazy all the time? The Kinect missed the point, if you want exact movement tracking that is handy for niche uses but for a lot of games it isn't.
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We should actually see more innovation in this regard as a result
Either that, or we'll see more Epic fail 'Kinect Star Wars' games where the studio take an absolutely awesome idea and turns it into some sort of dance dance revolution knock off.
Your argument is based on the assumption that the developers won't make a mess of game design. Evidence to date indicates that we really shouldn't be getting our hopes up.
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For us, yeah: Netflix. The ability to control it via voice is great. If you mean games? None to speak of.
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... can Kinect 2.0 run Linux?
Preferably as a Beowulf Cluster.
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Kinnect is a sensor, you mean Xbox 720 perhaps...
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Is it friendly with non-Xbox devices like before? (Score:3)
If the new Kinect is as friendly with PC's as the last one, that'll be a step up. Otherwise it just becomes another console accessory.
Downgraded much? (Score:4, Insightful)
I remember see articles about how the Kinect 2 would be able to see every joint of every finger. You could type in mid-air and it ould understand it and it could even read sign language. Now they are saying it can see if your hand is open or closed.
What a disappointment.
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I'm very confident they will have full hand pose estimation with joint rotation tracking. I'm currently doing my thesis on this topic and I can easily envision MSRC achieving this goal with their man power, computing power and the new Kinect 2 sensor (the old one is extremely noisy).
Re:Hand states (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hand states (Score:4, Informative)
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As it so happens that's already implemented [youtube.com].
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"Extra joints"?! (Score:2)
The original can already track 6 players (Score:2)
The original Kinect has no hardware limit on how many people it can track. Any limit is imposed by the game software. Kinect Party, for example, works with up to six players.
AWESOME!! (Score:1)
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WinRT talks to .Net, which talks to the Kinect SDK. You should already be able to use it in WinRT apps.
Durango (Score:2)
the D is silent
Summary is wrong (Score:2)
This all is possible thanks to 512×424 depth resolution period.
Drop in latency is only due to new Xbox having more cores and bigger processing power.
Doesnt look as hot as I had hoped. I was expecting 720p depth.
NSA in your living room (Score:3, Insightful)
Kinect 2 is an always on feature of the new Xbox console. Images capture by the hi-resolution or infrared camera can be encrypted and stored as hidden files on the massive hard-drive in real-time for later transmission over the Internet. The cameras and microphones can also be remotely activated if the console is powered up, even if the console is not connected to the Internet (the activating device in this case needs to be in the vicinity of the console, so it can use a wireless link).
The truth is that the NSA, and other intelligence agencies, don't even fully know yet what use they'll put all the mined visual data to. They just know that spying in the living rooms of so many citizens is a dream come true.
Yes, every nerd will swear they'll put a cover over the Kinect camera bar whenever not strictly in use, but in reality few will bother at all, and even from this group most will soon stop.
Anyone using Windows on a desktop system knows it has been long impossible to block Microsoft's low level constant outward Internet data streams (without impacting the general use of the Internet). To use the new Xbox means being forced to trust all of Microsoft's Internet data streams. Only the people willing to permanently forego the use of the Kinect 2 (and these will be VERY tiny in number) can be sure to prevent spying, by permanently sealing the sensors somehow. However, Microsoft has given itself the ability to see most simply sensor blocking as a 'malfunction', and demand that the sensors be allowed to receive reasonable input for ANY application on the console to function.
Given that Microsoft's consoles frequently find themselves in the bedrooms of underage children, you might think (if you were very stupid indeed) that the government would mandate HARDWARE off switches for devices like Kinect, so people could be certain when the computer had no ability to record video. However, with devices the government can use to spy on us, the opposite is true. Manufactures are forced to use 'soft' switches that can be over-ridden remotely. Remember folks, it ain't 'child porn' when your government is the one operating the secret camera. We already had this proven in court, when that school district was using laptops to spy on their pupils in their bedrooms. The court judgement stated that the state is absolutely allowed to secretly spy on children.
The safest societies are those where the people at the top respect the people at the bottom- and these societies are formed when the people at the bottom actually work (eg., form a union) to gain respect.
The most dangerous societies are those where the people at the top despise and disrespect the people at the bottom. These societies are formed when naturally corrupt and evil leaders discover that there is NEVER any resistance by the people at the bottom to the abuses heaped upon them. By saying "please Microsoft and the NSA, place permanent government accessible cameras in our homes", people mark themselves worse than slaves or Russian serfs from the 18th century.
Slavery and serfdom didn't just exist in the past, it was the common abusive form in which hundreds of millions of people lived their daily lives. No-one here seems smart enough to ask what psychological conditions cause such abuse to arise. Smart people know that if enough people think and act like slaves, then across time they will create the leaders that will turn them into ACTUAL slaves.
'1984' envisaged porno and lotteries for the plebs, and always-on TVs that had cameras watching the viewers in the homes of the middle-classes. Today, in our 'classless' society, we know the porno and lotteries (and video-games) are the 'sugar' used to get people to willingly install Big-Brother's cameras and microphones in their homes.
"Leaked" (Score:1)
Oh come on now.
It's deployed PR, call it for what it is.
Too tall for the kinect (Score:1)
That's great for them, but what about the rest of us who are taller than 3.28 feet?