Kinect, Unity 3D and University of Central Florida’s Interactive Systems & User Experience Lab brings us Kinect Football

Posted on September 2, 2011 by dwhite4580

Kinect, Unity 3D and University of Central Florida’s Interactive Systems & User Experience Lab brings us Kinect Football!

A work in progress, this demo showcases a full-body natural user interface for a game of football. The goal of the project is to develop a realistic interface that fully immerses the player and allows control of every aspect of the game. Shown here is the mechanism for controlling the quarterback, including speech recognition for audible plays, navigation in the pocket, upper-body mapping, and passing to receivers.

Kinect SDK – Unity 3D Interface Plugin

If you want to create your own games using the Microsoft Kinect and the free Unity 3D game engine, download the dll plugin. Created for the Kinect Football project, this initial version supports joint position data for one player and is compatible with the latest versions of Unity and the Microsoft Kinect SDK. Check back for updates, as we will be adding more to the plugin… including speech recognition, two player mode, and video streaming!

Project Information URL: http://www.eecs.ucf.edu/isuelab/unity.php

Project Source URL: KinectSDK-Unity3D_Interface_Plugin, https://github.com/adevine1618/KinectSDK-Unity3D_Interface_Plugin

Contact Information:Joseph J. LaViola Jr.Andrew DeVine”

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Templated posture detector, Voice Commander

Posted on September 2, 2011 by dwhite4580

Templated posture detector, Voice Commander and NuGet package now available in v1.1 of the [David Catuhe] Kinect Toolkit

“We’re revisiting a friend of the Gallery, David Catuhe (aka Eternal Coding), and his Kinect Toolkit. We last covered the Kinect Toolkit here, Gestures and Tools for Kinect and matching Toolkit too (and don’t forget he was our first Gallery post too, Of course our first Kinect for Windows SDK Project has to involve a Light Saber!)

Anyway… David has continued to enhance and improve his Kinect Toolkit and recently released v1.1 adding some cool new features and making it easier to add to our projects too.Kinect Toolbox 1.1 : Template based posture detector and Voice Commander

Kinect Toolbox v1.1 is now out and this new version adds support for some cool features:Templated posture detector Voice Commander NuGet package

You can find the toolbox here : http://kinecttoolbox.codeplex.com or you can grad it using NuGet : http://nuget.org/List/Packages/KinectToolboxTemplated posture detector

Using the same algorithm as TemplatedGestureDetector, you can now use a learning machine and a matching system to detect postures. In the sample attached with the toolbox I detect the ”T” posture (i.e. when you body is like the T letter):

…Voice Commander

One thing worth noting when you develop with Kinect is that you will spend your time getting up and sitting down . In the previous article, I introduced the replay system which is very useful to record a Kinect session.

But when you are alone, even the recording is painful because you cannot be at the same time in front of the sensor and in front of your keyboard to start/stop the record.

So here enters the Voice Commander (tadam!!). This class can use a list of words and raise an event when it detect one of them (using the microphone array of the sensor). So for example, you can use “record” and “stop” orders to launch and stop the recording session while you stay in front of the sensor!

The code is really simple (thanks to Kinect for Windows SDK and Microsoft Speech Platform SDK):

…

Project Information URL: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/eternalcoding/archive/2011/08/02/kinect-toolkit-1-1-template-based-posture-detector-and-voice-commander.aspx, http://kinecttoolbox.codeplex.com

Project Download URL: http://kinecttoolbox.codeplex.com/releases/view/71078, http://nuget.org/List/Packages/KinectToolbox

Project Source URL: http://kinecttoolbox.codeplex.com/SourceControl/list/changesets

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Microsoft Patents 3-D desktop

Posted on September 2, 2011 by dwhite4580

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/26737/?ref=rss

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The 3D Tech Behind Virtual Production using Kinect

Posted on September 1, 2011 by dwhite4580

The 3D Tech Behind Virtual Production using Kinect

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How Microsoft’s Kinect could bring gesture recognition to business apps | ZDNet

Posted on September 1, 2011 by dwhite4580

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/how-microsofts-kinect-could-bring-gesture-recognition-to-business-apps/10489?tag=mantle_skin;content

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Developers: App.net Adds Support For Windows Phone Apps

Posted on September 1, 2011 by dwhite4580

Developers: App.net Adds Support For Windows Phone Apps

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WmPowerUser/~3/J6-YpXWkd78/

“App.net is a website/service that helps developers optimize their application’s online presence and provides tools to manage, monitor and promote their product. Using App.net, developers can create landing pages and widgets as well as monitor performance data. This is targeted towards developers who create cross platform apps and find it difficult to create a webpage for each one of those. App.net already supports iOS and Android OS, now its adding support for Windows Phone, Blackberry and HTML5 apps. You can see the above image as an example of the landing page that can be done using App.net.

Caldwell of App.net in an interview with VentureBeat says,

“A lot of the larger shops have apps on multiple platforms, and there are small developers that are experimenting with WP7,”

More details can be found here and at app.net.

via: Venturebeat”

-Sent from Weave for Windows Phone 7

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Nsquared’s Seamless Computing, Surface + Kinect + Slate + Phone = amazing interface

Posted on August 31, 2011 by dwhite4580

While viewing this consider full convergence of these elements. The phone and slate are already merged, my choice for perfect phone/slate would allow interchangeable screens. Kinect is simply an augmentation of the camera. Pixelsense is added to every screen and of course every device has NFC. What else……….? The software to light it all up.

Nsquared’s Seamless Computing, Surface + Kinect + Slate + Phone = amazing interface (video)

“Sydney’s nsquared is calling it “Seamless Computing” — software which unifies Windows Phone 7, Surface, Windows 7 Slate and Kinect. Begin designing a new home on your phone and then place it on the Surface to share between all the devices, then pick up the Slate to make some modifications before walking through a 3D model of the building, navigating with Kinect’s gesture interface. Software like AirPlay and Touch to Share already give you a taste for this sort of tech, but the experience that Dr. Neil Roodyn demonstrates in the video below is far more immersive — not to mention unspeakably cool.

Posted in Kinect, NFC - Near Field Communication, PixelSense, Surface, User Experience, Windows Phone | Tagged | Leave a comment

Boeing 737 Explained using Kinect

Posted on August 30, 2011 by dwhite4580

Boeing 737 Explained using Kinect

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Hands-on with Inkling 2.0, the iPad textbook

Posted on August 27, 2011 by dwhite4580

Hands-on with Inkling 2.0, the iPad textbook

This week, digital publishing startup Inkling debuted the 2.0 version of its software, which provides interactive, digital versions of college textbooks for the iPad.

Inkling 2.0 has a bunch of new features, including an interactive social layer that allows users to form online study groups with other readers worldwide, as well as in-app links to outside sources such as Wikipedia and Google. According to recent research, student demand for digital versions of required reading materials is at an all-time high, so Inkling 2.0 could prove to be quite popular at college campuses this coming fall.

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“Jurassic Mother” Is Our Earliest-Known Mammal Ancestor | 80beats!

Posted on August 27, 2011 by dwhite4580

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DiscoverMag/~3/OCqy1FOjq7Y/

“What’s the News: Researchers have now found a well-preserved fossil of the earliest known member of the animal group that encompasses today’s placental mammals, which includes humans. The shrew-like creature, named Juramaia sinensis, or “Jurassic mother from China,” dates back to 160 million years ago, 35 million years earlier than the oldest mammal fossil previously discovered. The Nature study gives some tangible support to genetic evidence suggesting that the two main types of mammals split well before the previous oldest mammal fossils.

How the Heck:

Zhe-Xi Luo, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, and his colleagues analyzed the Juramaia fossil, which was unearthed in China’s northeast Liaoning Province, a hotspot for paleontology. The fossil consisted of an incomplete skull, a partial skeleton, a full set of teeth, and impressions of residual soft tissues like hair.

After comparing the fossil’s features with those of other ancient mammals, the …”

-Sent from Weave for Windows Phone 7

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