Kinect Reflection... Reading body language Using Kinect

Kinect is coming up as a potential solution for various real world problems as well as for innovations that can change the world. The powerful use of Kinect can be an app that will understand human beings. We, Team Darpan, propose “Kinect Reflection” (an App) that will be used to read human behavior and body language and to accurately predict feelings and moods.

Our acts are reflections of our thoughts and hence the name...

The core of this will be designed for medical use, particularly in the field of psychology. This will help doctors being able to teach anger management by using the Kinect to read their stance and tone and interacting with them accordingly. It could also help in anonymous group sessions to gauge better how someone participating is feeling. It could also aid in working with autistic children, understanding how they move and handle the world around them. This has some interesting stuff for gamers too.

This app will use the capabilities of Kinect such as skeleton tracking, audio from microphone array, face tracking, color image and depth image, which are available in latest Kinect for Windows SDK.

Keep visiting for latest updates.

And as always, thanks for reading… :)

Cheers…

Monkey Business

Found this awesome stuff on internet today.. I can't believe that I missed it for last 1 year... Awesome work!

Thanks for watching.

Cheers.

Interactive and Immersive technologies around…

I love Human Computer Interaction and it has reason, it deals with two most powerful and complex machines in the world, a computer and human! If we visualize human computer interaction in various phases, we can conclude that it grown like –

Type => Click => Speak => Touch => Behave

Last phase behave is most interactive and is related with natural user interaction, where you are the controller. Kinect can be seen as an example of this. You can control machines using some gestures that you do naturally in real life.
Recently, I found some technologies on the web, really immersive and interactive. I feel they are worth mentioning here.

Disney turns houseplants into multi touch surfaces-

 

                Amazing technology by Disney where plants can be easily converted into remote controllers. Here, unlike Kinect, plants are the controllers of a computer instead of human. And that makes it innovative. It’s different! It’s something that was never thought and seen before.

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670595/disney-turns-houseplants-into-multi-touch-surfaces

Immersive display experience –

                A patent, recently filed by Microsoft, looks like something immersive. They may release it as a part of Xbox in its next version.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/09/microsoft-patent-shows-holodeck-style-full-room-immersive-display/

Power of your palms –

                A joint research by Newcastle university and Microsoft research, Cambridge, tries to achieve which could not be achieved precisely by Kinect so far. This sensor also has an IR emitter and it can be wore like watch. It can recognise all movements of your palm including fingers very precisely. You must have a look here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G98zYMMEDno&feature=youtube_gdata_player

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/press.office/press.release/item/power-in-the-palm-of-your-hands

After watching these technologies coming up (though they are from Behave phase of HCI), I believe that the next phase of HCI will be “Think”! J

Looking forward!

Thanks for reading!

Cheers…

Get a Microsoft Account and have all the powers!

               Recently I installed windows 8 on my laptop and yes, it is the OS for everything. By word everything, I mean everyone and every machine. Windows 8 was most awaited OS yet (not was, it is!). I have a windows phone 7.5 and was eagerly waiting for windows 8. Windows 8 is different not just in UI but in lot of other features including my favourite, Roaming.

            Microsoft recently revealed new look of outlook.com and the live ID will now be called as Microsoft account. Outlook has a stunning UI and amazing set of features. I just logged in to it using my old live account, which I was using on my phone and it synchronised all the contacts from my phone, which were not only my phone contacts but also my facebook contacts. When I signed up for Linkedin using same Microsoft account, it automatically synchronised my Linkedin contacts to my mail, phone and my windows 8 PC. Now, my facebook, twitter and Linkedin accounts are permanently linked to my Microsoft account. These things may not appear amazing as the task what they did is just syncing the contacts but the core part of story is yet to begin.

 

            Roaming is the most amazing thing I found in windows 8. I recently attended sessions of Raj Choudhary and Sanjay Shetty in PUG DevCon at Pune, where WinRT was stripped to its core (WinRT is the new runtime Microsoft added in windows 8 along with existing Win32/64). I was amazed by the fact that I can work on my apps, my data, my settings from anywhere in the world without having my windows 8 machine with me. I can just sign in to ANY windows 8 PC using my Microsoft account and my start screen will appear there! When I use my Microsoft account on my windows 8 PC, all my app data, settings get stored on cloud and it will keep track of all apps I have. When I sign in to other PC, just my start screen appears. When I click on one of windows 8 app, it will get downloaded from store (remember, windows 8 apps can only be downloaded from store). All my data, settings will be downloaded from Skydrive and I can work on my app instantly. If it is a game and I have completed 2 levels on my PC, I can start from third level of same game on the PC I have signed in to!

            Doesn’t it sound great? Roaming is the most important factor for all kind of gadgets and you can only carry with you, your phone, tablet or laptop sometimes, but never your PC. Windows 8 is an awesome solution for that. After all they are my devices, and they are my apps! I should be able to access any of my apps from any of my devices.

 

            Microsoft account is the future. You can have all your emails, events, documents, apps, settings, social networks, contacts at one place. If you don’t have one, sign up today. If you have one, use it smartly! You will have all the powers in the world right at your fingertips!

 

Cheers!