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."
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.
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.
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.
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.