MIT Emulates Tom Cruise With Multi-Touch Kinect Hack

Tom Goldman

Crying on the inside.
Aug 17, 2009
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MIT Emulates Tom Cruise With Multi-Touch Kinect Hack


With the geniuses at MIT working on user interfaces we can control through the air, Minority Report will become a reality any day now.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is all over Microsoft's Kinect, having already hacked it to become a in the past [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105404-New-Robot-Uses-Kinect-for-Peepers], but now MIT's CSAIL LIS group has taken a crack at it with gorgeous results.

One of the hack's creators, Garratt Gallagher, is shown in the demonstration video wiggling his fingers as the software picks up every movement. Each finger is recognized as separate, making this a multi-touch interface. Gallagher writes that this hand detection software can "distinguish hands and fingers in a cloud of more than 60,000 points at 30 frames per second," which sounds pretty good to me. For now, this interface is only used to manage photos.

Gallagher goes on to cycle through these photos by rotating his fingers in a circle. When he gets to a photo he likes, he grabs it and brings it to the center where it can be resized or rotated by using both hands at the same time. From there, he either smashes it to the right to save it, or bonks it to the left to evidently delete it. The final version should probably come with a confirmation prompt.

By the end, Gallagher is dual-wielding the interface like a pro to pick up and move around multiple pictures at once. He must have been going through pictures of his time with an ex, because he ends up angrily trashing the whole shebang. The interface doesn't look 100% perfect yet, as it's not as buttery smooth and the orbs that recognize fingers appear to flash on and off at points, but this is obviously an ongoing project and only the beginning. It's MIT, they'll work out the bugs.

Source: MIT CSAIL [http://www.youtube.com/user/MITCSAIL]


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Demonicdan

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Dec 8, 2010
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Shreder55 said:
Why are all the kinect hacks better than the real games?
Probably because the people at MIT want to make something cool, the people at microsoft just want to make a profit.
 

LavaLampBamboo

King of Okay
Jun 27, 2008
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Shreder55 said:
Why are all the kinect hacks better than the real games?
I think that whilst the hacks are better now, it'll show developers what could be done with console. If Microsoft put this sort of tech into the console, imagine what could be done in the future.
 

Anton P. Nym

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Sep 18, 2007
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Shreder55 said:
Why are all the kinect hacks better than the real games?
The Kinect hacks aren't using consoles for the back end but rather fairly powerful computers with a lot more horsepower. That lets them push the boundaries a lot further. You'll also note that this interface refreshes at "only" 30fps, whereas too many gamers these days get into snits unless the frame rate is 60fps.

I also think that Kinect hacks have lower expectations on them, as they're not expected to have game balance and replayability and HD art assets. It's easier for them to deliver more than expected.

-- Steve
 

Frapple

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Sep 7, 2007
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Some fantastic use of the Kinect drivers coming out in a few short weeks. Can't wait to see what actual games come out of this.
 

Loonerinoes

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Apr 9, 2009
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Kinect is probably the only system that could successfully emulate Tom Cruise's batshit crazy moves.
 

Zedayen

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Nov 20, 2010
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Is it just me, or at the start of the video where he's wiggling his fingers, it looks like a pair of eyes and crazy eyebrows.