Microsoft Toiling to Drastically Improve Kinect Accuracy

[Tom Goldman]

Microsoft Toiling to Drastically Improve Kinect Accuracy

If Kinect isn't accurate enough for you, Microsoft is working to fix that.

Microsoft's Kinect can currently detect its players' full body motions so they can questioned [http://www.amazon.com/Dance-Central-Xbox-360/dp/B002I0HBOI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292612134&sr=8-1] for use in games that require more accuracy. According to Eurogamer, Microsoft is working on it.

Kinect's abilities are managed by its firmware, which for now has the depth sensor set at a limit of 30 frames per second at 320x240 resolution. It's been determined that the sensor is capable of more, but there are issues with the Xbox 360 at hand.

The depth sensor could potentially be upgraded to 640x480 resolution by a firmware update, which could allow Kinect to detect individual fingers and hand rotation. The reason Microsoft hasn't enabled this yet is because of the Xbox 360's USB interface that can only manage a certain amount of data. Improving Kinect requires that it be able to transmit more data through USB.

The USB interface currently uses around 15 MB/s, but in theory that amount could go as high as 35 MB/s. Microsoft is working "very hard" on a solution to "free up additional bandwidth," Eurogamer says. Still, a major Kinect improvement may not be possible with the current Xbox 360 hardware if other issues pop up. MIT seemed to prove that Kinect could detect individual fingers with its Minority Report hack [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/106017-MIT-Emulates-Tom-Cruise-With-Multi-Touch-Kinect-Hack], so if Microsoft can rejigger the Xbox 360 it's possible that we'll someday see actual games using a higher level of Kinect accuracy too.

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-12-17-source-ms-quadrupling-kinect-accuracy]

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[AboveUp]

If they seriously do improve this with an update, and actually keep it a free one, then that would be an amazing feat on Microsoft's part. Considering another gaming company managed to deviously monetize their motion sensoring upgrade a few years ago.

But honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it's not going to be a free update. And considering most people who have caved and bought a Kinect are quite likely to buy the upgrade, especially if tied in with a game, or heck, a collection of minigames, I wouldn't really blame them.

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

That damn Minority Report hack is the sole reason I would buy one. Though that being said I did play about with it at a friends and it's an enjoyable piece of kit, and I can see the potential.

It didn't seem horribly inaccurate either.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

If they seriously do improve this with an update, and actually keep it a free one, then that would be an amazing feat on Microsoft's part. Considering another gaming company managed to deviously monetize their motion sensoring upgrade a few years ago.

Not to rush to Nintendo's defense or anything, but their "accurizing" solution did require new hardware. (The new gyro sensors in the Motion+ pack.) It sounds like MS is trying to tweak the software instead, which is a lot less expensive to do. (And vastly less expensive to ship.)

Though if USB signal degradation is the limiter, we may yet see a hardware solution in the form of a specialised cable with a signal repeater or something. I'd hate to see that, myself.

-- Steve

 

[Grey_Focks]

Well good on them, I suppose. I'm still not terribly interested in it yet, but I do see a few interesting games coming out for it on the horizon that will hopefully not suck.

 

[mjc0961]

Where's USB 3.0 when you need it?

 

[megs1120]

Does the issue affect the new 360s with their dedicated Kinect port?

 

[manythings]

I'm still on the whole "Adding a Peripheral" so games like FPS are easier to play with it. Yeah it will be cool if it becomes more Accurate but if they release the controller for it then it is going against what they wanted lol.

God i really hope they do end up putting out a controller. I want to see them try to spin that shit. It would mean admitting Sony were right when they had the whole "Buttons are better" thing.

OT: Why don't they just hire some of the guys who have been hacking kinects? They are clearly doing far more interesting and economical things that microsoft ever thought up.

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

If they seriously do improve this with an update, and actually keep it a free one, then that would be an amazing feat on Microsoft's part. Considering another gaming company managed to deviously monetize their motion sensoring upgrade a few years ago.

But honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it's not going to be a free update. And considering most people who have caved and bought a Kinect are quite likely to buy the upgrade, especially if tied in with a game, or heck, a collection of minigames, I wouldn't really blame them.

If they released an update for sale, doing it any time soon would be too soon.

 

[Somethingfake]

Didn't MS say earlier that Kinect was accurate enough?

 

[AboveUp]

If they seriously do improve this with an update, and actually keep it a free one, then that would be an amazing feat on Microsoft's part. Considering another gaming company managed to deviously monetize their motion sensoring upgrade a few years ago.

But honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it's not going to be a free update. And considering most people who have caved and bought a Kinect are quite likely to buy the upgrade, especially if tied in with a game, or heck, a collection of minigames, I wouldn't really blame them.

If they released an update for sale, doing it any time soon would be too soon.

That's true. They'd need to wait for at least a full year after Kinect's release to be able to properly market something like this without it coming across as milking the product for all its worth.

If they seriously do improve this with an update, and actually keep it a free one, then that would be an amazing feat on Microsoft's part. Considering another gaming company managed to deviously monetize their motion sensoring upgrade a few years ago.

Not to rush to Nintendo's defense or anything, but their "accurizing" solution did require new hardware. (The new gyro sensors in the Motion+ pack.) It sounds like MS is trying to tweak the software instead, which is a lot less expensive to do. (And vastly less expensive to ship.)

Though if USB signal degradation is the limiter, we may yet see a hardware solution in the form of a specialised cable with a signal repeater or something. I'd hate to see that, myself.

-- Steve

True. Although I'd like to add that I'm not really holding a grudge against Nintendo about this. It gave people what they wanted, and they made a fair profit out of it. Any company in their right mind would have monetized the update, hardware requirement or no and they at least had the decency of introducing it with a sequel to one of their most popular releases (hard not to admit the success of Wii Sports).

 

[Hunter65416]

I smell a Kinect usb motionplus in stores

 

[zmanu]

I don't see upping the resolution to full VGA doing too much good. The limiting factor for the depth sensor resolution is the IR laser dot pattern, and that is rather coarse. Sure, the sensor needs the proper resolution to pick the pattern back up, but at the end of the day, it can only extract one depth value per laser dot, and there are less than 320x200 of those. Yeah, they're dense enough to pick up individual fingers if you're close enough to the sensor (between 50cm and 1m), but it definitely will not work reliably at the regular play distance of around 2m.

(Playing around with the hack myself, not doing anything great so far.)