kinect kinectkinect for xbox onedevelopermicrosofttypemotion controllergenerationseventh and eighthgeneration erasrelease datexbox 360 na november 4 2010 microsoft windows na february 1 2012 discontinuedmicrosoft windowsww april 2 2015 connectivityusb 20 typea for original model proprietary for xbox 360 splatformxbox 360 xbox one microsoft windows windows 7 onwardspredecessorxbox live vision kinect for xbox 360 the xbox 360 e revision has an xbox logo to the left of the xbox 360 branding kinect codenamed project natal during development is a line of motion sensing input devices that was produced by microsoft for xbox 360 and xbox one video game consoles and microsoft windows pcs based around a webcamstyle addon peripheral it enables users to control and interact with their consolecomputer without the need for a game controller through a natural user interface using gestures and spoken commands the firstgeneration kinect for xbox 360 was introduced in november 2010 in an attempt to broaden the consoles audience beyond its typical gamer base a similar hardware version kinect for windows was released on february 1 2012 the 10 version of the windows sdk allowing commercial applications was released with and required the kinect for windows hardware kinect for xbox one a new version with significantly expanded hardware capabilities was released with the xbox one platform starting in 2013 the 20 version of the windows sdk supported the kinect for windows v2 as well as the kinect for xbox one hardware microsoft announced the discontinuation of the first kinect for windows device as of 2015 the kinect for xbox one was discontinued in october 2017 representing the end of the kinect product line history kinect was first announced on june 1 2009 at e3 2009 under the code name project natal it was rumored that the launch of project natal would be accompanied with the release of a new xbox 360 console as either a new retail configuration during kinects development project team members experimentally adapted numerous games to kinectbased control schemes to help evaluate usability among these games were beautiful katamari and space invaders extreme which were demonstrated at tokyo game show in september 2009 although the sensor unit was originally planned to contain a microprocessor that would perform operations such as the systems skeletal mapping it was revealed in january 2010 that the sensor would no longer feature a dedicated processor instead processing would be handled by one of the processor cores of xbox 360s xenon cpu the xbox 360 s and e models have dedicated ports for kinect removing the need for an external power supply on march 25 2010 microsoft sent out a save the date flier for an event called the world premiere project natal for xbox 360 experience at e3 2010 the event took place on the evening of sunday june 13 2010 at galen center on june 16 2011 microsoft announced the beta release of its sdk allowing development of noncommercial applications running on microsoft windows 7 using the kinect for xbox 360 hardware on july 21 2011 microsoft announced that the first ever white kinect sensor would be available as part of xbox 360 limited edition kinect star wars bundle which also includes custom a star warsthemed console and controller and copies of kinect adventures and kinect star wars previously all kinect sensors had been glossy black on october 31 2011 microsoft announced launching of the kinect for windows program with release of sdk to commercial companies david dennis product manager at microsoft said there are hundreds of organizations we are working with to help them determine whats possible with the tech on february 1 2012 microsoft released the kinect for windows version of the hardware device and the final version of the sdk that required the new hardware allowing commercial applications it said that more than 300 companies from over 25 countries were working on kinectready apps launch a january 2010 promotional banner indicating the expected release of kinect then project natal by holiday 2010 the tabloid the new york post claimed microsoft had a 500 million budget for advertising the launch of kinect on october 19 microsoft advertised kinect on the oprah winfrey show by giving free xbox 360 consoles and kinect sensors to the people in the audience a major event was organized on november 3 in times square where singer neyo performed with hundreds of dancers in anticipation of kinects midnight launch kinect was launched in north america on november 4 2010 technology kinect for xbox 360 2010 kinect for xbox 360 was a combination of microsoft built software and hardware the hardware included a range chipset technology by israeli developer primesense which developed a system consisting of an infrared projector and camera and a special microchip that generates a grid from which the location of a nearby object in 3 dimensions can be ascertained the kinect sensor the depth sensor consists of an infrared laser projector combined with a monochrome cmos sensor which captures video data in 3d under any ambient light conditions described by microsoft personnel as the primary innovation of kinect this infrared image shows the laser grid kinect uses to calculate depth the depth map is visualized here using color gradients from white near to blue far reverse engineering because the kinect sensors motorized tilt mechanism requires more power than the xbox 360s usb ports can supply kinect for windows 2012 on february 21 2011 microsoft announced that in spring 2011 it would release a preliminary software development kit sdk enabling researchers and enthusiasts to develop applications running on microsoft windows pcs the beta version initially supported the kinect for xbox 360 hardware connected to a pc and only noncommercial applications were allowed the first beta was released for windows 7 on june 16 2011 on february 1 2012 a new hardware version of the device called kinect for windows was released at a suggested price of us 249 it was similar to the existing xbox 360 device but tested and supported under warranty for commercial windows applications at the same time version 10 of the sdk was released allowing commercial use with licence terms requiring the use of the kinect for windows hardware even for noncommercial use the sdk included windows 7 compatible pc drivers for kinect device it provided kinect capabilities to developers to build applications with c c or visual basic by using microsoft visual studio 2010 and included the following features raw sensor streams access to lowlevel streams from the depth sensor color camera sensor and fourelement microphone array skeletal tracking the capability to track the skeleton image of one or two people moving within kinects field of view for gesturedriven applications advanced audio capabilities audio processing capabilities include sophisticated acoustic noise suppression and echo cancellation beam formation to identify the current sound source and integration with windows speech recognition api sample code and documentation in march 2012 craig eisler the general manager of kinect for windows said that almost 350 companies are working with microsoft on custom kinect applications for microsoft windows in march 2012 microsoft announced that next version of kinect for windows sdk would be available in may 2012 kinect for windows 15 was released on may 21 2012 it adds new features support for many new languages and debut in 19 more countries kinect for windows 15 sdk would include kinect studio a new app that allows developers to record playback and debug clips of users interacting with applications support for new seated or 10joint skeletal system that will let apps track the head neck and arms of a kinect user whether theyre sitting down or standing which would work in default and near mode support for four new languages for speech recognition french spanish italian and japanese additionally it would add support for regional dialects of these languages along with english it would be available in hong kong south korea and taiwan in may and austria belgium brazil denmark finland india the netherlands norway portugal russia saudi arabia singapore south africa sweden switzerland and the united arab emirates in june kinect for windows sdk for the firstgeneration sensor was updated a few more times with version 16 released october 8 2012 kinect for xbox one 2013 an upgraded iteration of kinect was released on november 22 2013 for xbox one it uses a wideangle timeofflight camera and processes 2 gigabits of data per second to read its environment the new kinect has greater accuracy with three times the fidelity over its predecessor and can track without visible light by using an active ir sensor it has a 60 wider field of vision that can detect a user up to 3 feet from the sensor compared to six feet for the original kinect and can track up to 6 skeletons at once it can also detect a players heart rate facial expression the position and orientation of 25 individual joints including thumbs the weight put on each limb speed of player movements and track gestures performed with a standard controller the color camera captures 1080p video that can be displayed in the same resolution as the viewing screen allowing for a broad range of scenarios in addition to improving video communications and video analytics applications this provides a stable input on which to build interactive applications kinects microphone is used to provide voice commands for actions such as navigation starting games and waking the console from sleep mode all xbox one consoles were initially shipped with kinect includeda holdover from a previouslyannounced but retracted mandate requiring kinect to be plugged into the console at all times for it to function a standalone kinect for xbox one bundled with a digital copy of dance central spotlight was released on october 7 2014 kinect for xbox one was considered a market failure with critics crediting privacy concerns held over from controversies that affected xbox ones launch how its inclusion affected the consoles launch price which affected sales in comparison to playstation 4 and the smaller number of kinectspecific titles developed for xbox one by mid2015 microsoft had begun to heavily downplay kinect as part of its overall strategy for the platform with the release of the refreshed xbox one s sku in 2016 the proprietary port used to attach kinect was removed from this and future revisions of the console necessitating the use of a usb 30ac adapter cord this was offered for free to xbox one s owners with kinect until march 2017 on october 25 2017 microsoft officially announced the discontinuation of kinect for xbox one and end of production production of the adapter cord also ended by january 2018 project kinect for azure on may 7 2018 microsoft announced a new iteration of kinect technology designed primarily for enterprise software and artificial intelligence usage it is designed around microsoft azure cloud platform and is meant to leverage the richness of azure ai to dramatically improve insights and operations software see also list of kinect games and list of xbox live arcade kinect games requiring at least 190 mb of available storage space xbox 360 games that require kinect are packaged in special purple cases as opposed to the green cases used by all other xbox 360 games and contain a prominent requires kinect sensor logo on their front cover games that include features utilizing kinect but do not require it for standard gameplay contain a better with kinect sensor branding on their front covers kinect launched on november 4 2010 with 17 titles thirdparty publishers of available and announced kinect games include among others ubisoft electronic arts lucasarts thq activision konami sega capcom namco bandai and mtv games along with retail games there are also select xbox live arcade titles which require the peripheral kinect fun labs at e3 2011 microsoft announced kinect fun labs a collection of various gadgets and minigames that are accessible from xbox 360 dashboard these gadgets includes build a buddy air band kinect googly eyes kinect me bobblehead kinect sparkler junk fu open source drivers in november 2010 adafruit industries offered a bounty for an opensource driver for kinect microsoft initially voiced its disapproval of the bounty stating that it does not condone the modification of its products and that it had built in numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering and the company later clarified its position claiming that while it does not condone hacking of either the physical device or the console the usb connection was left open by design the first thing to talk about is kinect was not actually hacked hacking would mean that someone got to our algorithms that sit inside of the xbox and was able to actually use them which hasnt happened or it means that you put a device between the sensor and the xbox for means of cheating which also has not happened thats what we call hacking and thats what we have put a ton of work and effort to make sure doesnt actually occur what has happened is someone wrote an opensource driver for pcs that essentially opens the usb connection which we didnt protect by design and reads the inputs from the sensor the sensor again as i talked earlier has eyes and ears and thats a whole bunch of noise that someone needs to take and turn into signal microsofts alex kipman speaking formally on nprs science friday on november 10 adafruit announced hctor martn as the winner in december 2010 primesense whose depth sensing chips were used in the kinect for xbox 360 hardware released their own open source drivers along with motion tracking middleware called nite openni is an opensource software framework that is able to read sensor data from kinect among other natural user interface sensors thirdparty development a demonstration of a thirdparty use of kinect at maker faire the visualization on the left provided through kinect is of a user with a jacket featuring wearable electronic controls for vjing numerous developers are researching possible applications of kinect that go beyond the systems intended purpose of playing games for example philipp robbel of mit combined kinect with irobot create to map a room in 3d and have the robot respond to human gestures alexandre alahi from epfl presented a video surveillance system that combines multiple kinect devices to track groups of people even in complete darkness for a limited time in may 2011 a topshop store in moscow set up a kinect kiosk that could overlay a collection of dresses onto the live video feed of customers through automatic tracking position and rotation of the virtual dress were updated even as customers turned around to see the back of the outfit kinect also shows compelling potential for use in medicine researchers at the university of minnesota have used kinect to measure a range of disorder symptoms in children creating new ways of objective evaluation to detect such conditions as autism attentiondeficit disorder and obsessivecompulsive disorder nasas jet propulsion laboratory jpl signed up for the kinect for windows developer program in november 2013 to use the new kinect to manipulate a robotic arm in combination with an oculus rift virtual reality headset creating the most immersive interface the unit had built to date reception kinect for xbox 360 receptionreview scorespublicationscorecvg8810 upon its release the kinect garnered generally positive opinions from reviewers and critics ign gave the device 75 out of 10 saying that kinect can be a tremendous amount of fun for casual players and the creative controllerfree concept is undeniably appealing though adding that for 14999 a motiontracking camera addon for xbox 360 is a tough sell especially considering that the entry level variation of xbox 360 itself is only 19999 cnets review pointed out how kinect keeps players active with its fullbody motion sensing but criticized the learning curve the additional power supply needed for older xbox 360 consoles and the space requirements the mainstream press also reviewed kinect usa today compared it to the futuristic control scheme seen in minority report stating that playing games feels great and giving the device 35 out of 4 stars kinect for xbox one although featuring improved performance over the original kinect its successor has been subject to mixed responses in its xbox one review engadget praised xbox ones kinect functionality such as face recognition login and improved motion tracking but that whilst magical every false positive or unrecognized prior to xbox ones launch privacy concerns were raised over the new kinect critics showed concerns the device could be used for surveillance stemming from the originally announced requirements that xbox ones kinect be plugged in at all times plus the initial alwayson drm system that required the console to be connected to the internet to ensure continued functionality privacy advocates contended that the increased amount of data which could be collected with the new kinect such as a persons eye movements heart rate and mood could be used for targeted advertising reports also surfaced regarding recent microsoft patents involving kinect such as a drm system based on detecting the number of viewers in a room and tracking viewing habits by awarding achievements for watching television programs and advertising while microsoft stated that its privacy policy prohibit sales while announcing kinects discontinuation in an interview with fast co design on october 25 2017 microsoft stated that 35 million units had been sold since its release other motion controllers motion controller gaming kinect competes with several motion controllers on other home consoles such as wii remote plus for wii and wii u playstation moveplaystation eye for playstation 3 and playstation camera for playstation 4 awards the machine learning work on human motion capture within kinect won the 2011 macrobert award for engineering innovation kinect won t3s gadget of the year award for 2011 microsoft kinect for windows software development kit was ranked second in the 10 most innovative tech products of 2011 at popular mechanics breakthrough awards ceremony in new york city microsoft kinect for windows won innovation of the year in the 2012 seattle 20 startup awards dreameye eyetoy list of kinect games motion capture playstation 4 camera playstation eye playstation move sega activator structuredlight 3d scanner wii balance board wii remote xbox live vision wikimedia commons has media related to kinect official website for xbox kinect official website for kinect for windows kinect playlist at the official youtube xbox channel kinectshare kinectsharecom ifixit teardown of kinect 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