Making waves with Touché.

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In 2008, the Walt Disney Company established an R&D unit called Disney Research. This effort was aimed at unlocking innovations and technology advances through an “an informal network of research labs that collaborate closely with academic institutions such as Carnegie Mellon University and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (ETH)”.

In case you were too busy eating Shawarma, Three researchers working with Disney Research recently introduced Touché a technology that enables Gesture Recognition by using capacitive sensing. While this isn’t a pure play at Gesture Recognition like a camera based systems this technology will help to create a seamless bridge between previously adopted tech to a new paradigm that promises to make big waves!

The video below shows a demonstration of Touché

If the voice in the video sounds familiar it’s because it’s the same person who narrated the video for a Gesture Recognition device I covered in my lecture at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in January. There is a connection between these devices as Chris Harrison is a member of both of the teams; Touche and OmniTouch. I suspect the voice is his.

Listen closely…

It’s important to note that the Touché is not just a compelling video demo but that it was also awarded the Best Paper Award at the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Austin, Texas.

Something to Watch Over Me or Using the Microsoft Kinect as a Home Security Device.

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In case you don’t get the reference Something to Watch Over Me is a play on the title of a 1987 Ridley Scott film called Someone to Watch Over Me. First let me start by saying if you’re asking yourself “Who the hell is Ridley Scott?” then you need leave this website immediately, never to return!!! Of course, that’s a joke. Anyway I digress, this film focuses on Tom Berenger’s character a NYPD detective having to provide security protection to a female character who has witnessed a high profile murder. The movie is fairly pedestrian bordering on bad but the point of this post is not a movie review. It’s actually about a fairly interesting piece of innovation I recently came across. Abhijit Jana a .Net specialist with Microsoft, has developed a way to leverage many different Microsoft technologies to use the Microsoft Kinect as a Home Security System. As Jana explains on his Blog the concept of operations for the Kinect Security System is as follows:

“The Kinect devices will be run by a WPF application running on the PC which will look for any human intrusion. While there is no human intrusion, it will remain in “Patrol Mode” where it will upload pictures of its view on regular intervals to Windows Azure. These pictures can be monitored at any point of time through the application running on Windows Phone and Windows 8. Whenever there is an human intrusion detected the Kinect changes itself to “Intrusion Mode”; it then alerts Windows Azure and also starts streaming the video to the Smooth Streaming Server hosted on Windows Azure. The Azure notifies all the devices subscribed (Windows Phone / Windows 8 ) using a toast and will allow those application to view the live streaming. From your Windows Phone / Windows 8 app you can also control the Kinect device”.

This is absolutely terrifying if you consider how this could work within the context of a employee/employer context. However, on the other hand this does also provide a nice solution for a great deal of other applications. Besides just securing your home and personal belongings this can be utilized for hard to reach or dangerous locations where there is a reasonable need for security and access control but a dminishing incentive to risk human assets to man these types of posts.

You can read a more detailed explaination with a thorough breakdown of the architecture for this solution here.

Below is a video discussion and demonstration

http://www.istream.com/news/watch/69757/Windows-Azure-meets-Kinect-Win-Phone-and-Win-8

On another note, I’m glad to be getting back in the swing of things. The break I took recently was necessitated by a number of conflicting commitments which caused me to let some priorities becoe deprioritized. I look forward to any comments, questions, or recommendations you have to offer.

 

 

 

Long break…Just a little longer

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I wanted to let everyone know that this long break will be just a little longer.

Finishing this semester and getting super busy around the house and at work has taken up mostly all of my free time!

There have been some really interesting developments that I can’t wait to share with you.

Stay Tuned!

R,

Erik

Appside…A supply side marketplace for Gesture Gaming could change the living room forever!!!

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In the same vein as Apple iTunes, iPhone App Store, and the Xbox Live Marketplace, AppSide is a marketplace for gesture recognition apps and games that work with the Asus Xtion and other gesture recognition devices. The website which went live on the 28th of February 2012 could be well poised to be the early leader in what will likely become a very crowded market in the future. According to the company’s press release “Appside’s strategy is to offer compelling gesture-controlled games and apps that work across all gesture-controlled devices (e.g., SmarTVs, Media Centers, IPTV set-top boxes)”.  Using Appside marketplace, application and game developers can publish, promote, and sell their own content. Appside will also promote applications made by their software partners thus helping not only garner sales but also spreading the work across many different partner networks. They are “backed by Kima ventures, a prominent European seed fund, Wekix, a technology and new media start-up accelerator, as well as high-profile Israeli, US-based and European private investors”.

I very much like the idea of the Appside marketplace and sincerely hope it thrives as more and more people adopt early market open sourced or IPTV solutions that will be able to take advantage of this delivery format. In my opinion, Appside will really need to partner with Google to get their software pre-installed onto their Motorola Mobility cable boxes. This I feel will help them leverage a larger user base and make it easier for customers to purchase a gesture recognition device without worrying about device compatibility. This seems to have some promise but only time will see tell if Appsider will leave its mark on the world of Gesture Recognition technology.

Appside Founder and CEO Jonathan Yaari  @ Casual Connect 2012 in Hamburg, Germany.

Canadian PhD student to complete first comprehensive Gesture Recognition database.

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As reported by Toronto Star Staff Reporter Niamh Scallan a PhD student at Toronto’s Ryerson University in Canada is hoping to create a “comprehensive database of human gestures”. The student and entrepreneur Adrian Bulzacki hopes to have the database completed in the coming months. He’s not new to Gesture Recognition so this is a likely outcome. He’s already developed a soon to be released Xbox Kinect game based on Charades and his company ARB Labs has already gone ahead and started licensing Gesture Recognition technology. The database in its current form is said to already enable faster gesture recognition and Bulzacki forecasts that this type of speed can be helpful in security applications, which can be used in “airports, casinos, and banks”.

During my lecture at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in January I made note of the need for a standardized database for common gestures. This I feel will be crucial in creating ubiquitous cross device solutions as well as device independent software interfaces. So I’m hopeful that Bulzacki is successful in this endeavor because I feel that breakthroughs like this will be a key contributing factor to the explosive growth that will take place in Gesture Recognition technology over the next 5 years.

Adrian Bulzacki demonstrating some of the Gesture Recognition tech developed at Ryerson’s Digital Media Zone

An industry pro steps up bigtime to blog Gesture Recognition!

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It was bound to happen…Competition. I foolishly figured that I had cornered the Gesture Recognition Tech Blog marketplace…Turns out I was wrong.

So just under a month ago I was contacted by one Micha Galor of Primesense. As you may recall I blogged about Primesense leading up to CES 2012. He wanted me to check out his Gesture Recognition blog which is called “Beyond casual: thoughts about gesture gaming” .

I did and let me tell you this guy knows what he’s doing!!! Well he better,because he’s the Manager of the Applications and User Experience group at Primesense.

Not only is Micha passionate about Gesture Recognition technology but he is supremely knowledgeable on the subject. This is especially true when it comes to developing Gesture Recognition solutions. As I read through his posts I came across this one which is basically providing a soup to nuts overview of the hardware and software tools one needs to develop Gesture Recognition solutions. He even includes some really great videos to go along with his article.

Check out Micha’s blog for yourself but be warned you may develop a “beyond casual” affinity for his postings…He’s got a knack for it!!!

Update: Congratulations to Team Apptender!!!

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I wanted to post a quick update to a previous article I posted here back in December of last year.

At the end of January Microsoft announced the four Imagine Cup grant winners.  One of those grant winners is Team Apptender a team from Croatia that created a physical therapy solution using the Microsoft Kinect and other Microsoft technologies. The “KiDnect” is a solution specifically designed to facilitate and track physical therapy exercises for children afflicted with Cerebral Palsy. It uses the Kinect to collect and track movement while the kids exercise and allows therapists to monitor whether or not the children are indeed doing the exercises correctly.

So what so they get for their prize…Well it’s nothing to shake a stick. Microsoft’s announcement details what each team receives…

“The grant packages include $75,000 (U.S.) for each team, as well as software, cloud computing services, solution provider support, premium Microsoft BizSpark account benefits and access to local resources such as the Microsoft Innovation Centers. Microsoft will also connect grant recipients with its network of investors, nongovernmental organization partners and business partners.”

Congratulations to Team Apptender!!!

Etronika wants to help people get Hands Off with their finances.

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Lithuanian company Etronika specializes in developing Electronic Banking, Identity Management, and Smart Retailing technology solutions.  The company has been seen showing off their current online banking software that uses the Microsoft Kinect to provide a Gesture Recognition interface. From what we can see from the video below the interface while accurate does seem to have a slight lag in response time. To be fair, it’s not entirely clear what hardware is being used to provide connectivity. That being said, it’s still amazing and extremely promising. This could offer a viable option to manage identity in real-time. Another interesting capability on display is the drag and drop interface which allows the user to place items directly onto their mobile phone from the account management screen. This is the first time I’ve heard of Etronika but I’m definitely interested and will keep an eye on their development in the future.

Etronika Gesture Recognition Banking Video Demo

Etronika CEO and Co-Founder Kestutis Gardziulis being interviewed following his FinovateEurope 2012 demo.

Gesture Recognition Company Profile: Omek Interactive pursuing partnerships and innovation in Gesture Recognition

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Omek Interactive is a Gesture Recognition headquartered out of Beit Shemesh, Israel with a U.S. office is in San Francisco, California, just down the street fromCandlestick Park and an office in Taipei, Taiwan.

Omek doesn’t  make Hardware but instead focuses on producing Middleware solutions. The company’s main product offering is called the Omek Beckon  Development Suite.The company advertises Beckon to be flexible enough that developers can produce gesture recognition solutions that are compatible with most hardware and software solutions on the market.That being said to call Omek simply a Middleware provider may be selling them a bit short.

Tracking the company’s news releases one would note that since December 2010 the company has announced numerous partnerships to produce notable Gesture recognition solutions. The partners being, Intel, Panasonic, PMDTec, Ubitus Inc, Side-Kick, Lenovo’s EEDOO Tech, and Jinni Media.

Another strong discriminator for Omek Interactive is that are pushing best practices and innovation within the Gesture Recognition industry. They released a white paper in August 2011 which outlined their view of best practices within the digital signage space.

Additionally, on display at CES 2012 was Omek’s work with Jinni Media to provide a cutting edge technique for media interaction. This collaborative offering uses both passive interfaces and active gesture recognition to determine viewer profiles and generate video preferences based on Jinni’s proprietary “Movie Genome Project” .

While some companies in the Gesture Recognition industry are basing their success on offering very specialized hardware or software solutions. Omek seems to be having a great deal of success by following the aphorism spouted by Robert Heinlein’s character Lazarus Long  in the 1973 Science Fiction novel “Time Enough for Love”

“Specialization is for insects”

Omek Interactive and Jinni Media’s at CES

Omek and Panasonic solutions on display with FRANKE, a manufacturer of intelligent kitchen systems

For more videos visit Omek Interactive’s YouTube page here

Launch Day: Kinect for Windows, February 1st 2012

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Today, February 1st 2012 was launch day for the Kinect for Windows…I think this is a pretty spectacular leap forward from a user interace standpoint.I’m reposting here a blog post that was released this morning on the Kinect for Windows Blog.

The post was made by Craig Eisler the General Manager for the Kinect for Windows program.
The blog is posted here

All I have to say is “Support for up to four Kinect sensors plugged into the same computer“ and my head starts spinning with the possiblities.

Read on…

“On January 9th, Steve Ballmer announced at CES that we would be shipping Kinect for Windows on February 1st.  I am very pleased to report that today version 1.0 of our SDK and runtime were made available for download, and distribution partners in our twelve launch countries are starting to ship Kinect for Windows hardware, enabling companies to start to deploy their solutions. The suggested retail price is $249, and later this year, we will offer special academic pricing of $149 for Qualified Educational Users.

In the three months since we released Beta 2, we have made many improvements to our SDK and runtime, including:

  • Support for up to four Kinect sensors plugged into the same computer
  • Significantly improved skeletal tracking, including the ability for developers to control which user is being tracked by the sensor
  • Near Mode for the new Kinect for Windows hardware, which enables the depth camera to see objects as close as 40 centimeters in front of the device
  • Many API updates and enhancements in the managed and unmanaged runtimes
  • The latest Microsoft Speech components (V11) are now included as part of the SDK and runtime installer
  • Improved “far-talk” acoustic model that increases speech recognition accuracy
  • New and updated samples, such as Kinect Explorer, which enables developers to explore the full capabilities of the sensor and SDK, including audio beam and sound source angles, color modes, depth modes, skeletal tracking, and motor controls
  • A commercial-ready installer which can be included in an application’s set-up program, making it easy to install the Kinect for Windows runtime and driver components for end-user deployments.
  • Robustness improvements including driver stability, runtime fixes, and audio fixes

More details can be found here.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, without many years of intense R&D efforts, including research investments of hundreds of millions of dollars, and deep partnership between our research teams, software teams, hardware teams, manufacturing teams, and games studios, Kinect simply wouldn’t exist.  Shipping Kinect for Windows was another cross-Microsoft effort: not only did the hardware and software teams work closely together to create an integrated solution, but our support, manufacturing, supply chain, reverse logistics, and account teams have all been working hard to prepare for today’s launch.  As well, our research, speech, and Xbox NUI teams have contributed to making Kinect for Windows a better product.   Microsoft’s ability to make these kinds of deep investments makes Kinect for Windows a product that companies can deploy with confidence, knowing you have our support and our ongoing commitment to make Kinect for Windows the best it can be.

Looking towards the future, we are planning on releasing updates to our SDK and runtime 2-3 times per year – in fact, the team is already hard at work on the next release.  We are continuing to invest in programs like our Testing and Adoption Program and the Kinect Accelerator, and will work to create new programs in the future to help support our developer and partner ecosystem. We will also continue to listen to our developer community and business customers for the kinds of features and capabilities they need, as they re-imagine the future of computing using the power of Kinect.

Craig Eisler General Manager, Kinect for Windows