Kinect Cameras are Watching The South Korean Border Right Now

[Michael Epstein]

Kinect Cameras are Watching The South Korean Border Right Now

That camera you yell at in your living room is now guarding one of the most dangerous places on the planet.

Kinect is being called up to the big leagues, folks. The South Korean military has announced they are using a Kinect-based security system to help protect itself from North Korean invasion, placing cameras along its border to monitor the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) for military encroachment.

Why use Kinect? The system uses the Kinect camera/motion detector to quickly assess potential threats near the border. The sensors can tell the difference between humans and animals, and can alert nearby stations if it detects someone who shouldn't be there.

Developed by South Korean programmer Jae Kwan Ko, the system was installed in August and recently announced to the public. "I've never even thought of a game system performing national defense tasks," Ko told Korean publication Kotaku [http://news.hankooki.com/lpage/economy/201401/h2014010903325721540.htm])

Ko also mentioned that, when fully implemented, the system will be able to monitor a subject's heart rate and body temperature: Two features found in the Xbox One version of Kinect.

The Xbox One is expected to launch in South Korea later this year.

Source: Kotaku [http://news.hankooki.com/lpage/economy/201401/h2014010903325721540.htm]

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[CriticalMiss]

So now the Xbone does TV, Sports and National Defense. Take that Sony!

 

[J Tyran]

Well if it works as well as it does on the consoles I expect they will turn off within a week after every stray leaf in the wind sets of a major alert and whole platoons of North Korean soldiers just walking past it.

 

[BrownGaijin]

Well should the Xbox None flop at least it has a potential career in National Security.

 

[lacktheknack]

I bet the team that developed the camera is sweating like mad right now.

That's a lot of pressure to put a slightly glitchy consumer tech under.

 

[CriticalMiss]

Are they using Kinect 1.0 or 2.0?

I think it's the 2.0 unless the first one could measure heart rate and temperature.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

I just said yesterday someone needs to hack the Kinect 2.0. Someone send Jae Kwan Ko a couple xbone kinects so he can pick them apart and start implementing them the way he wants. Then every xbone owner in the world can easily export that stupid spy cam to someone who can actually use it. All M$ needs to do now is make a useless xbox peripheral that can be used to find more of the "Coal Mines" North Korea is digging right under the DMZ.

Hopefully this system will let South Korean patrols decide better about whether or not the person(s) trying to cross are defectors trying to see their long lost families or spies and saboteurs, who may be armed and dangerous. That place makes the Berlin Wall look like a picket fence with a tired, old guard dog.

 

[Robert Marrs]

Using the Kinect to secure your borders? The thing can barely detect hand motions. Just wait until it starts a war by reading an old boot as a squad of North Korean soldiers.

 

[liger03]

It's not a bragging point to say the Kinect won't trigger on moving non-human moving objects... otherwise South Korea will get Kinect-cam vision of cardboard box migrations. Upgrade to thermal? Coat the boxes in mud. It won't make you blend perfectly into the soil, but a thermal camera wouldn't be able to auto-ID the occupant as a human.

The Kinect wasn't designed to detect things trying their hardest to hide from it. Hopefully it's well tested (and well-modified) before it sees action.

 

[Sarge034]

It's sad that modders can utilize this technology far more efficiently and effectively than the techs creators... Anyway it's a cheap, motion sensitive, day, night vision enabled, FLIR (forward looking infrared) camera. Makes sense to use it for boarder security.

 

[Strazdas]

cheap motion sensors that you cna hack and write costum software for? sure, why not use that. its not really a kinect at this point anymore as much as taking car engine and maknig it run a boat makes it a car.