1.Kinect for Xbox 360 UNIT 36 GAMES PLATFORMS - HARDWARE TECHNOLOGIES 1

2. Kinect for Xbox 360 Kinect Lesson Objectives: To understand gesture-controlled gaming, the components of the Kinect and its various alternative uses. 2 3. Gesture-controlled games platforms How would you describe gesture-controlled gaming? 3 Gesture gaming, also known as motion gaming, refers to video game systems that use motion- sensitive game controls that must be moved through physical space, as opposed to traditional game controllers in which the controller is held in place while players push buttons and pull triggers. Can you name any other gesture-controlled games platforms? Project Natal Demo video clip: 2009 4. Kinect for Xbox 360 Key features of Kinect gaming: 4 Can you identify two features of Kinect technology that were predicted in Minority Report? Some technological features of Kinect were once purely concepts in science fiction, such as gesture- controlled and voice-controlled computing in Minority Report, 2002. Accessible to all gamers and non-gamers Voice-controlled via speech recognition technology Fully interactive gaming experience Controller free gaming full body play via motion sensing Minority Report video clip: 2002 5. Kinect Components How does it work? 5 3D depth sensors, RGB camera and multi-array microphones work in combination to create the Kinect experience. 6. 3D Depth sensors 3D Depth sensors: 1. The infrared projector on the Kinect projects a speckle pattern of infrared dots which reflects on objects in the room. The dots are invisible to normal sight as they are in the infrared range. 2. The infrared camera can read the pattern of dots and sends this pattern to the depth sensors processor which calculates the depth from the displacement of the dots, on near objects the pattern is widely spaced, and on far objects the pattern is dense. 6 Potential problems: Sunlight and bright lights can interfere with the speckle pattern so that Kinect is not able to read it. Also multiple Kinects or infrared light sources can overload and confuse the system. Infrared light speckle pattern 7. 7 RGB Camera RGB Camera: 1. Kinect combines the infrared picture with a picture from its RGB Camera. The camera runs at a low resolution of 640 x 480 pixels and takes a picture 31 times a second. 2. The camera detects faces and movement by recognising 20 skeletal points for up to two people. Kinect checks the images it has collected with a database of more than 1 million known possibilities. Learning the Kinect decision forest requires 24,000 CPU-hours, but takes only a day using hundreds of computers simultaneously. Shotton et al, CVPR(2011) 8. 8 Microphones Multi-array Microphones: In a manner similar to the camera, the microphones monitor the conversations in the room and compares the audio stream to known commands. The Kinect audio database is able to recognise hundreds of commands, in a multiple of languages and accents. Putting it all together: Minority Report Revisited Garret Gallager video clip: MIT 2010 9. 9 Kinect for Xbox 360: alternative uses Ghost Recon: Kinect has been adopted by the paranormal research community based on its reputation for detecting and recording the presence of paranormal activity. What might be other possible uses for the Kinect outside of gaming? Paranormal activity video clip Surgery: The Kinect is being employed to make life easier for surgeons in the operating theatre. Kinect in surgery video clip 10. 10 Kinect for Xbox 360: alternative uses contd Kinect is helping monitor the Demilitarised Zone in south Korea. Helping the blind to see: Kinect for the visually impaired. Warwick Mobile Robotics: Kinect powered search and rescue reconnaissance robots. Nanosatellites equipped with Kinect could join together like space Lego. Kinect aids in rehabilitating movement in stroke victims. 11. 11 Kinect for Xbox 360 Lesson Objectives: Gesture-controlled gaming The components of the Kinect Alternative uses of the Kinect 12. 12 Activity Open Moodle Under Unit 36 Games Platforms & Technologies: open document Platform Technologies: Xbox 360 Complete the table and questions on the hardware technologies of the Xbox 360.