Gesture Control

One notable optics omission from Nokia's first two Windows Phone O/S-based handsets, a writeup on which I just published, is that they don't include the front-facing cameras which Windows Phone v7.5 supports for the first time, and which other OEMs are including in their new "Mango"-based handsets. The omission is especially surprising given that Nokia's

Two weeks back, I discussed how Microsoft was "maturing" the Xbox 360 Kinect experience by integrating support for the peripheral in an increasing number of new games, including adult-tailored titles such as Forza Motorsport 4. More recently, Microsoft took the broadening aspiration in the other direction, partnering with three other companies to create content targeting

While Kinect is an impressive embedded vision hardware achievement, both in an absolute sense and particularly when considering its price tag, the software that harnesses its potential has to date been (at least in this observer's mind) a bit underwhelming. Granted, titles such as Kinect Sports are a lot of fun. But they're…gimmicky. And they're

The IEEE Hot Chips Conference has historically been a can't-miss event for me each year, but I wasn't able to attend this year's 23rd iteration held last week. Tipped off by a 'tweet' from a former co-worker, I realized too late that Microsoft was on the program, discussing the objectives and implementation of the Kinect

If you're a software coder interested in doing embedded vision development, you're unfortunately (as mentioned last Friday) not going to be able to use the official Kinect SDK unless you target Windows 7 (and only Windows 7). Granted, you've got other options; if Kinect is your target hardware foundation, there's always the open-source community to

Speaking of the Xbox 360…yesterday, Microsoft released Avatar Kinect, a capability first unveiled at Microsoft's early-January Consumer Electronics Show keynote and free to Xbox LIVE Gold subscribers (and to all Xbox 360 users through September 8) from Kinect Fun Labs. The Xbox 360 user interface has incorporated user-customizable Avatars since mid-November 2008; here's what currently