Microsoft's Kinect camera system is getting a major upgrade.
Via: csmonitor.com
That Microsoft is (secretly, as of now) deep in the throes of crafting a successor to its wildly successful Xbox 360 console should come as little surprise. These development cycles are predictable like the seasons. But the specific information leaked to Kotaku about the system upgrade is quite encouraging: the Kinect camera system is getting a hefty improvement. Better resolution, more powerful tracking, and deeper integration with the new console mean the burgeoning Kinect hacker movement will have access to a new, more powerful gaggle of goodies with which to analyze...well, anything. And the implications for sports could trigger a revolution in not just how we play games but the way teams, agents, and specialists approach injuries.
To this point, the forefront of athletic-injury studies are specialty outlets like the American Sports Medicine Institute, founded 26 years ago by the esteemed Dr. James Andrews. Over the past decade or so, researchers down in Birmingham, Alabama, have studied more than 2,000 pitchers using basically the same 3-D motion-tracking camera system. Much like actors on a soundstage performing special F/X movements, athletes are dotted up with reflective markers that feed an approximation of biomechanical movements into the mainframe. Ten years ago, the cameras filmed at roughly 500 frames a second. To this day, the same camera speeds remain.
Enter Kinect's souped-up infrared system, which doesn't rely on reflective markers, but rather a camera that can collect many more data points, determining depth and forms by calculating the distance light is traveling from the sensor to objects standing in its range (read: people) and then back again. Every specification that made Kinect so addictive for sports games is purportedly receiving an sizable upgrade. According to the Kotaku report, here's how the new camera will interpret movements, as compared with the original Kinect.