Sony readies official PS Move support for PCs

Sony has paved the way for developers to use its PlayStation Move technology as an input device, with the launch of an official SDK. Move.me is an software server application, designed for academics, college students, HCI developers or anyone with a programming interest. Sony says it wants to see how people can take the PS …

[Carol Orlowski]

Actually better than Kinect

Because it uses the PS3 as the server, doing all the number-crunching, and then sends the results via networking.

What this means is it's not just PC, it can be hooked up with anything with neworking, e.g. Smarphones etc...

It also means this pikey hackers can't decompile the motion algorythms, as they are still locked in the PS3...

I'm also curious why people think this is a result of what Microsoft did with Kinect.. That's a rather naive thought, as clearly Sony have been offering home development on consoles since the 1990's with PS1 (Net Yaroze), PS2 Linux and PS3 Linux (until the hackers spoilt it for us and used it to try and hack the PS3).

Microsoft have done prettymuch jackshit, except not lock down Kinect, have opensaucers write some drivers, and then jump in and pretend that was their plan all along.

[TheItCat]

Actually worse than Kinect

Because it requires you to buy a PS3 instead of just getting the Move hardware.

With the Kinect (and indeed, the PC drivers for the Xbox360 controller) you just buy the hardware you want and attach it to your PC. Much better than needing to buy the entire console and then network it.

[Anonymous Coward]

And why wouldn't you want this?

Motion detection is a very CPU intensive process. Let the PS3 do the complex number crunching, using Sony's tried and tested algorithms, and let the users do the cool stuff interpretation of the data on platform independent, language independent ways.

Also why wouldn't you want a PS3 anyway, as it's the best console around, the best Blu-Ray too, and it's a steal at £180....

[bolccg]

Actually better for Sony than Kinect is for Microsoft

There, fixed that for you.

[David 146]

No it's worse than kinect

The PS3 Move's controller does not contain anything 'special' unlike the Kinect which features a depth-sensing camera. The Move performs tracking and depth sensing with a glorified blob-tracking algorithm with a standard webcam (the PS Eye is 640x480@30fps). Such a technique is not computationally expensive at all, and can be performed in real-time on a machine from 10 years ago without any problems.

The Move controller does feature a set of sensors for unit orientation detection, much like the Wii does, but it's hardly anything special as I said. It does the same thing as the Wii remote but with the ability to determine distance from the camera. Considering it needs a PS3 to power the thing I just don't think it makes sense from an economic PoV.

[Anonymous Coward]

fact check

Some fanboyisms getting in the way of facts here. Actually the PS3eye runs at 640x480@75fps, or 320x240@125fps. These high frame rates make it very handy for smooth blob tracking and various live performance applications (keeping up with a fast-moving object or person). Before the kinect came out it was the preferred bit of homebrew tracking kit - once you open it up and remove the IR blocking filter, and stick a proper board lens on there, it becomes an incredibly good camera for the price, (and I tried pro firewire machine vision cameras that cost 5x the price that had worse specs).

I have both kinect and ps3 for experimenting with live performance (live tracking and projection stuff) and the ps3 cam still has its uses because that frame rate means you can keep up with someone moving quickly, provided you can light the scene adequately with IR light. The kinect with its lovely depth sensor is sexier and can do more stuff but is also relatively laggy at 30fps and can't keep up with things moving as fast. So they both have their place in the homebrew/hacking word. If you want to make a multitouch table for example, the kinect is definitely not the best solution.

As for the Move part, I dunno, I haven't tried it. If it has a proper gyroscope in it I might be tempted to use it for something.

check out

[Anonymous Coward]

@Fact Check

> Before the kinect came out it was the preferred bit of homebrew tracking kit - once you open it up and remove the IR blocking filter

Indeed we were working with it to create a cheap eyetracker for disabled users - Sony put a stop to kind of work last year by changing the lens design and making the IR Filter non-removable.

Kinect is where its act these days, I point you at a hundred interesting projects - not aware of any using Move.

[Shakje]

@fact check and the guy below him

"If you want to make a multitouch table for example, the kinect is definitely not the best solution."

Wouldn't the best solution be a multi-touch table?

The guy below the post also said that he can point to a hundred or so Kinect projects and no Move ones, surely that's just because there isn't any way of interacting with the Move yet?

[Eradicate all BB entrants]

This has to be ........

.... a post from a very crafty troll. Please tell me it is :|

The Kinect was 'hacked' because it had features they WANTED to use for other things.

The Move wasn't because frankly it's shit, can you imagine being the guy who 'hacked' some dayglo maracas?

[Anonymous Coward]

newspaper headlines from 2012

The Move SDK was being used by hackers to access the hypervisor code and therefore Sony has disabled support in the latest firmware revision.

Sony version of the story: here is our latest firmware that in line with the T&C, the EULA, etc etc will implement new fantastic security measures as a result of which the Move is now supported only in its function as a dildo.

[Anonymous Coward]

Until........

Sony decide FU and lock the firmware.

[Octoberon]

Izzy-wizzy

If I have to wave something about to control the computer, why not carry on with the trusty old rodent? It's familiar, comfortable and cheap.

Kinect on the PC I can see having potential uses because there's no other 'hands-free' tech in regular use. With the Move, it's limited to those with a PS3 (I have one, that's not a complaint) and adds very little real innovation that's viable for anything other than games, which simply brings us back to the PS3/Eye/Move combination.

Hack it for fun by all means, and thanks to Sony for providing the tools to play with, but this isn't going to change the world.

(Controlling my smartphone with the Move...please.)

[Kevin 6]

Well

This will be untill someone figures out their might be a way possible to bootleg a game using the ability then they will remove the ability through a mandatory update (if you want to use anything new on the system)

One question what good does the move do isn't it just a webcam? Looks more like the controller is the thing that senses distance. The kinect is great for robotics for the 3d dept perception for robotics. Only thing I see a move good for if you wanted to make a robot that acted like a blind man and hit everything with the alien vibrator to see how far it could move.

I guess it could have some use if you were making something to essentially play follow the leader.

[Octopoid]

I for one

am looking forward to the release of this just as much as the release of the Kinnect SDK. People seem to think Move and Kinect are competing control methods, and while they are obviously competing in the marketplace, they're actually pretty much mutually exclusive. One tracks your body, one puts an object very accurately into your hand - both very useful, and there's virtually no overlap of functionality whatsoever.

I'm going to try and use both to create an application to map both the Move buttons and pointer and the Kinnect gestures and voice detetction to a virtual controller - then, amongst other stuff, I can use the Move Sharp Shooter for guns and movement, and Kinect gestures for actions - raise your left arm for Pipboy in Fallout, throw Plasmids in Bioshock! :D

The only thing that worries me is the lack of detail on what the SDK is for - anyone know how it's going to work? Will you be writing code on the PC, then building and sending it to the PS3 to run, or is the PS3 just used to host the Move stuff, and your code runs on the PC?

I think, and hope it's the latter. And I'm hoping they release proper drivers for Move on the PC alone. I'm not going to hold my breath on that.

[Jolyon Smith]

Features that people WANT to hack Kinect for...

As far as I can tell, the only notable "hacks" of Kinect have not been to DO anything useful at all, but merely to play with the data the device+drivers OUTPUT to create funky visualisation.

Nobody has made a single *APPLICATION* using KINECT yet, that i know of.

NOTE: Technology/capability demonstrations are NOT applications. You can demo an application without building an actual application, but you have to be able to connect [sic] the technology/capability you *are* demonstrating with an actual problem and explain (if not show) how your demonstration goes toward solving that problem.

Overlaying crappy webcam captured images on top of a geometric model assembled from the output of a device is not an application. It's a demo. And not an especially impressive one, from either a results (it looks like shit) or technology (it's all just API's) perspective.

Same goes for MOVE of course, altho we have yet to see what people do (or think they could do) with that hardware.

[MJI]

Interesting.

I cannot see that much use for Move outside of gaming, unlike the Kinnect.

However I do rate the Move as a control method it is superb for FPS, unlike the above.

So i would say they are different, one is good for games, one is good for robots.