Kinect blesses rescue robot with 3D sight Microsoft's Kinect sensor can be used for much more than just entertainment. In fact, it's already being utilised in a device that could save lives. A team from the University of Warwick has used Kinect to develop a rescue robot that navigates dangerous places in search of survivors, BBC News reports. This would be ideal for …
I'm still enjoying my Kinect. Downloaded a few demos I intend to try out, and Child of Eden and Gunstringer both look pretty fantastic.
On a more positive note (getting away from xbox bashing), the kinect has truly made a lot of positive changes to this world. From using it for robotic surgery, 3d navigation, 3d modelling etc etc. Must be doing Microsofts rep some good.
I suspect that this particular robot will not only be using kinect for navigation, but also for the recognition abilities, so it'll be capable of recognising bodies whilst it navigates it's way through structures.
Hackers and open sources have used Kinect to make a lot of positive changes to this world. If MS had not changed its mind, none of these would have come to light. It does MS rep little good as MS have little to do with these advances and people (rightly) still recall the initial threats of lawsuits.
This robot is just another example of why closed, proprietary systems stifle development. The innovations only started pouring in AFTER it had been busted wide-open.
Sony, are you paying attention? Can you see the MS hardware pissing all over your pathetic little parade?
DARPA must be salivating over the uses they can apply Kinect technology to.
For building and structure internal surveys they use a monstrous backpack like device, that employs lasers, which undoubtedly cost a fortune. Now they potentially can apply Kinect technology and save time and money.
The potential is practically unlimited.
Good god, it's a bloody cheap webcam with an infra red sensor. Even the PS3's PS Eye has resolution/frame rates than this thing. The article is incorrect as well, Kinect doesn't grant 3D sight. Kinect is a mono-scopic camera system with an infra-red based active sensor for mapping 3D environments.
But really, are you honestly saying that this POS camera is somehow something that DARPA has never seen anything like before? Seriously?
I'm now very confused, Is Microsoft good or evil? This used to be easy. Microsoft bad, the rest of the world good, but now I'm not so sure.
Opening up the Kinect with an SDK is a good thing, but this is Microsoft so it must be evil but it's a good thing to do.
Is Microsoft learning from Sony, that after all these years, embracing the hacker community is a good thing or is there some T&C's that means using the Kinect gives all your money/children/spare organs to Microsoft.
I need to go and lie down in a dark room with a wet towel on my forehead before it explodes.
"Is Microsoft learning from Sony, that after all these years, embracing the hacker community is a good thing..."
Wot, you mean by selling your product as having a hacker-friendly feature (e.g, OtherOS), then removing that feature in an update, then suing the pants off of any hacker attempting to regain that feature?
That's one embrace I'd prefer not to get. At least Microsoft's path in this case went from closed childishness to openness rather than the other way round.
In reply to
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Wot, you mean by selling your product as having a hacker-friendly feature (e.g, OtherOS), then removing that feature in an update, then suing the pants off of any hacker attempting to regain that feature?
That's one embrace I'd prefer not to get. At least Microsoft's path in this case went from closed childishness to openness rather than the other way round.
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What I meant to say was
"Is Microsoft learning from the Sony PS3 fiasco, that after all these years of making life difficult for the OSS community by creating FUD on Linux (see SCOX), making their licensing terms difficult (impossible to comply with) but is now embracing the OSS community by releasing a SDK that allows nice things like adding pseudo-3d vision to a rescue robot."
I personally have managed to avoid Sony products now for some time and am doing nicely since then.
???
Where you been this last decade? There's a new guy vying for the evil megacorp honours. To give you a clue, "do no evil" is their mantra, but perhaps they're the only ones who actually believe it. Don't get me wrong, the new megacorp has done some amazing things for the world, it's just that they don't seem to get the concept of privacy.
As for Microsoft... There's an equal viable choice that I can use without buying some weird specialist computer. In fact, it will happily co-exist on the same machine as Windows. It can do pretty much all the stuff Windows does. It comes with an office suite too, So Microsoft's days of buy-and-extinguish are history. I think deep down inside Microsoft is having to face some difficult decisions as the world is fast catching up, and I don't think it will be too long before the likes of Ubuntu pass The Granny Test. Hell, it already installs and configures itself more quickly, it is just stuff like installing printer drivers and apt-get for "dirty" codecs that get tricky. But that'll come... I guess what I'm saying is does anybody, these days, much care if Microsoft is evil or not?
It's that other one you gotta watch out for.
It's an awesome bit of kit that was being held back by the uses MS tried to put it to (and the lack of enough clout in the 360, even the 'kinect ready ones', to really use it). Opening it up to the orld can only be a good thing.
Add it to a decent multicore system (even a PS3 would be a decent start) and the possibilities are phenomenal.
Just off the top of my head I can foresee over a dozen really excellent uses for the technology in the emergency services and a vast amount for the military.
The resolution limit of Kinect is such that it is utterly impractical for military or emergency use. However, quite apart from that, both the military and emergency services already have access to far more sophisticated devices than this.
On the monitor in the bank while I was queuing. CNN perhaps?
I liked the shadow puppets but robots are cool too.
The story focussed on the fact that this was done without the assistance of manufacturers whose interested is largely on restricting the use of their hardware.
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