Using Kinect On A Robot/Other Things

[Lance]

I'm sure many of you heard of the $3000 bounty that was collected by a fellow who managed to get the Kinect addon for the Xbox 360 to work natively in Linux just three hours after it was released.

A little over a week later some folks managed to get it working on a robot.
There's a bunch of other things that it has been used for too. One video put up by the same guy who made the open source drivers shows him using the kinect to control the a laser driver to display an image on a box that he holds up in front of it.


To me it seems like microsoft will sell a lot of units to people who want to use it for creative purposes. I don't own any consoles, but it seems like it would be a great utility for people who need a cheap and relatively simple sensor for their machine. It combines an accelerometer, depth sensing camera, and an RGB camera all in one. The thing can even angle itself up or down. A simple solution for people who either aren't able to use, or afford things like LIDAR sensors. The big issue I see with this device, is that it needs a somewhat large area to work, hence why you need a full size living room to use it for playing games. I'm not sure if range would be as big of an issue if you're just using it for detecting simple boundaries though. I haven't worked with it at all.

What do you guys think?

[Mechatrommer]

the keypoint of this device is it vision system (rgb cam, ir cam, ir projector). and i'm speculating why microsoft dont want this thing to go into hobby coz there is possibility for this vision system to be sold specifically for such application (robotics etc) at higher price point. they sell it at cheaper price for the purpose to work with their more expensive xbox. the bigger issue with this vision system is that it wont work outdoor where the sun's ir predominates everything. if some owners listening to this, try to run the device in a room, and open your window so the bright sunshine can comes in and see how the system will be screwed, i'm suspecting.

[GeoffS]

Microsoft have done a U turn on the Kinect, they now say that the design was deliberately left 'open' (use Microsoft's interpretation of open here)
See article here.

Micrsoft seem to have realised that they can sell a heap of these things and make a tidy profit even if the device is not restricted to Microsoft operating systems.

[Mechatrommer]

Microsoft have done a U turn on the Kinect

not a "U", but figure of "8" turn, they are fooling around, or just they are fooling on us . now i wonder where will it be heading for the device, in term of App and the price.
sure the App will be limitless, but the price? we'll see.

[the_raptor]

Microsoft have done a U turn on the Kinect, they now say that the design was deliberately left 'open' (use Microsoft's interpretation of open here)
See article here.

Micrsoft seem to have realised that they can sell a heap of these things and make a tidy profit even if the device is not restricted to Microsoft operating systems.

The actual quote says the USB interface was "left open" (ie they didn't try to munge it with encryption). It would have been done that way because they didn't expect anyone to bother to repurpose the unit and so encryption was an unjustified expense.

Also like the xbox itself I doubt MS makes much profit selling Kinect units, the profit will be in the games. And really the amount of people who will buy this for hacking is going to be sub-percentage point compared to all the gamers.

[Lance]

That's what I see. For people who want to seriously into robotics they already know how to use proper tools standalone. But for hobbyists or people who need an "easy" introduction it looks like it would come in handy. I'm not too sure about gamers either. For gaming, motion control can only do so much.

Also like the xbox itself I doubt MS makes much profit selling Kinect units, the profit will be in the games. And really the amount of people who will buy this for hacking is going to be sub-percentage point compared to all the gamers.

That's how it usually works. Sell the hardware at a loss, then profit on video game sales. Someone can spend $150 once, and then $60 many more times before the life of the console is up.