The Microsoft Kinect

[Kalle]

Just wanted to chime in again after I have set up my new theater at my new place.

I setup my Kinect on top of my side left speaker on the wall aimed towards the center where the couch is.  Initially it didn't respond super well to me unless i talked like a robot, and would hardly ever get my roommate or his girlfriend.  Well, after doing 3 voice training sessions on the buillt-in software in windows, it gets what I say with 95%+ confidence and my roommate and his girlfriend with 90%+.  I have yet to have a false positive and I've been using it for about a week everyday.  Just wanted to say it is possible!  This is just with setting the mic volume to about half, and with Vox in standby mode with a 2 word prefix.

Still loving the software.  Amazing work and upgrades, James!

Hi fattybunter, happy new year 
You'll also be understood if in the background playing music or a movie?

[jitterjames]

hey FB.  Thanks for the positive feedback.  Great to hear   

I take it you are using the normal version of VC and not VoxKinecto?

[fattybunter]

As long as it's not super load and I speak up just a tad it has no problem even if I'm saying it from across the room.  I do have to pause it if i'm blasting music or a movie though.  I can put together a video if you'd like

Yep, it's the normal version of Vox.

[jitterjames]

yes I would LOVE it if you posted a youtube video!    Thanks.

[fattybunter]

Alright, I'll do that when I get home.

Warning: My two-word prefix is a little PG-13.

[jitterjames]

it's probably ok but if you can change it to something rated 'G' without breaking it that might be better 

[fattybunter]

Alright here's a short video.  Doesn't really do it justice since my roommate wasn't home and the volume was really loud one of the times i tried to say stop.  

&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[Kalle]

Alright here's a short video.  Doesn't really do it justice since my roommate wasn't home and the volume was really loud one of the times i tried to say stop.  

&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Hi fattyburner, looks as if it works well, even at relatively high volume (my neighbors would kill me  )

Kalle

[jitterjames]

Hey, pretty good!  I wonder if you could use Kinemote to lower the volume when you raise your hand.  I'm not sure if it works when you are sitting down.

If you are comfortable, please make the video public so maybe some new people will discover it.  If you prefer to keep it private that's OK too though.  Thanks for taking the time to make it!  It's hard to think of all the possible commands when you are making a demo right?  I know all about that...

[Kalle]

Hey, pretty good!  I wonder if you could use Kinemote to lower the volume when you raise your hand.  I'm not sure if it works when you are sitting down.

If you are comfortable, please make the video public so maybe some new people will discover it.  If you prefer to keep it private that's OK too though.  Thanks for taking the time to make it!  It's hard to think of all the possible commands when you are making a demo right?  I know all about that...

News from Microsoft: I read, in february 2012 Microsoft bring out a kinect for Windows, it cost 240$, but I don't know it is the same one as the XBox version. Crazy, the kinect for Xbox cost the half.

[jitterjames]

I am pretty sure it will not be worth the $$ !

[fattybunter]

made the video public (sorry for the delay)

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/kinectforwindows/discover/features.aspx#

"One of the many improvements to the Kinect for Windows SDK is improved skeletal tracking, which lets developers control which user is being tracked by the sensor. In addition, the latest Microsoft Speech components, along with an improved acoustic model significantly improve speech recognition accuracy."

Does this mean you can finally leverage the 4 microphone array noise cancellation features?

Im gonna post another video too because I've added some more really cool features

[jitterjames]

nope.  Are you looking to drop $250 more bucks on a new device that probably isn't really any better?

This thing still only works with English for one thing.  There were a lot of other major flaws in the beta sdk that they aren't mentioning. There are many other reasons why I'm not very optimistic about it.  I also am not planning on spending $250 to buy the new version and then wrestle with a new sdk just so I can see if it is any better, when I seriously doubt that it will be.

I'm also not sure about licensing issues.  I would have to do some searching to find out what the situation is with that.

Thanks for making the video public, and I look forward to the next one!

[fattybunter]

the new SDK works with the original kinect as well, the only difference being that the old kinect doesn't support "near" motion.  Totally not worth $250, I agree.  I just happened to have a leftover kinect when my roommate moved out.

[jitterjames]

Oh.  I got the impression you needed the new hardware to use it.  Well, I'll keep it in mind for a rainy day, but I wouldn't hold my breath!