Store Offers Kinect Body Scanner To Help You Find Jeans That Fit 59
itwbennett writes "For those of you who can't count on a friend to tell you that a little more air should come between you and your Calvins, a Bloomingdales store in Palo Alto has just the solution: An Xbox Kinect-based body scanner that will help you find your best fit. While body measuring systems aren't new, using the Xbox Kinect is a much more affordable solution. Which means that soon we'll all have the opportunity for a computer to tell us that we should 'avoid wearing low to mid rise jeans.'"
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Any chance of a plug-in that will make the screen flash red with text that says, "FAT CHICKS SHOULD NOT WEAR TIGHT JEANS!" when appriate?
Or another one that when a toned hot chick checks the fit the screen flashes, "NOT TIGHT ENOUGH!"
I don't know are microsoft coding it [slashdot.org]?
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Backscatter x-ray(?) that can see through clothing vs. low-res IR camera where you have to choose to strip off first. I can see how you'd confuse the two.
Unless you're trying to be funny, in which case, try harder.
where is my clothing synthesizer? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:where is my clothing synthesizer? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just about every time I try to buy clothes I walk away thinking about how they used to predict that in the future (that is, by now) we'd stand in front of a big screen that projected an image of us, we'd be able to fiddle with some knobs to pick clothing, see how it would look on us, and it would get custom-made to not just fit perfectly but also in whatever fabric, color, style, etc. we wanted. Note to the folks who make 3D printers, make one that does fabric.
Sweat shop slave labour is cheaper.
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You rang? [shapeways.com]
I've seen 'cloth' printed to this design; it is somewhat flexible but more akin to chainmail than fabric.
it will work great* (Score:5, Funny)
with 5cm (or worse) error rate from few meters.
*on fat people?
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No, you ASS makes your ass look big....
[laughing to self, while moving on to next girlfriend]
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with 5cm (or worse) error rate from few meters.
. . . and it can't be used in the US, because they don't use the metric system there . . .
Re:it will work great* (Score:4, Informative)
We use both. I'm an engineer, so I'm biased, but there is plenty of metric going on in the US - a certain software program involved with the Mars exploration program notwithstanding :)
We mostly use imperial units for stuff that doesn't matter, like milk or the speed of cars down highways. It makes sense - why should I toss all of my grandmother's cookbooks, or even go through the effort of converting them? Even then, we have both metric and imperial units printed on all of the products, and even our speedometers... which is pretty handy when driving in Canada.
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We mostly use imperial units for stuff that doesn't matter, like milk or the speed of cars down highways. It makes sense - why should I toss all of my grandmother's cookbooks, or even go through the effort of converting them?
Because then you'd be more familiar with the units, which might enable you to spot mistakes more easily (as in, "50g? Why is this 50g, surely they mean 5g!"), where otherwise using different units obscures them.
How fast is 80km/h? Residential road, large road, highway, or what?
"Max. capacity 1200kg" -- how many people?
"50C when operating" -- safe to touch?
Or, how easily can you work out how much cholesterol there is in half a bottle of milk, when it says "14mg per 100mL" on the side, but the capacity is a q
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Because then I'd be more familiar with the units, which might enable me to spot mistakes more easily (as in, "50g? Why is this 50g, surely they mean 5g!"), where otherwise using different units obscures them.
FTFY
People in the US can easily spot mistakes with imperial units as we're taught both systems in school. Truth is, imperial is actually simpler for household things like baking and cooking, because you're usually working in single digit numbers rather than triple digit numbers, which is great for the mathematically impaired. Fahrenheit also makes sense for temperature because of how much of a temperature difference we can feel, which is why a lot of metric thermostats go up in increments of .5 instead of
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All three replies have missed the point, so evidently I didn't make it very well. I'll try making it the other way round.
When road signs in the US say things like "2000 feet" it takes too long for me to parse the unfamiliar number and unit, remember the conversion (1/3 metre) and do the calculation (less than 700m). If there's an added problem -- perhaps I can't see what the sign is for -- I'm likely to doubt my conversion. Did I miss a zero or something?
Fortunately, nothing important (engineering/science
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But important stuff does use metric units, and many people in America working with them aren't as familiar with them as they could be.
I've yet to meet an engineer who cannot grok metric. In fact, most of us seem to prefer working in metric. I still shudder at the unit "slugs". If you work with metrics on a day-to-day basis, it becomes second nature.
Really? Many people seem to struggle with fractions
Well, I made the point about construction workers in jest - but in American construction, we still use inches, feet, and fractions thereof. Tape measures are all in 64ths of inches. People in construction are good at fractions :) I find them to be a PITA.
Temperature is completely arbitrary no m
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Truth is, imperial is actually simpler for household things like baking and cooking, because you're usually working in single digit numbers rather than triple digit numbers, which is great for the mathematically impaired.
Really? Many people seem to struggle with fractions.
There's no reason cooking using metric couldn't use fractions -- half-kilo, quarter-kilo, eight-kilo etc -- yet it doesn't. The fractions make it more complicated to scale recipes.
That is the whole point of imperial units, 1 gallon = 4 quarts, 1 quart = 2 pints, 1 pint = 2 cups, 1 cup = 16 tablespoons, 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons.... You don't need to use fractions, you simply use the smaller unit. Yes, for some things it is easier to use a fraction (cups is the one that comes to mind most often, but that is taken care of with a "measuring cup" anyway which has lines for 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, 3/4). This way, people don't use have fractions or decimal places in their cooking receipts, be
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How fast is 80km/h? Residential road, large road, highway, or what?
Wouldn't matter - all the signage in the US is in MPH. If you really needed the conversion, you'd look down at your speedometer since both units are printed there. This happens when you cross over to the Canadian side in your car and everything is in KPH.
"Max. capacity 1200kg" -- how many people?
It depends on what state you are in, but our elevators universally have the capacity in pounds. Some states require a kg label as well, and some require a maximum capacity defined in number of persons. If the ignorant American were traveling, then it probab
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I think that part of my post was a distraction from my main point -- see the reply above.
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Seeing how as you'd have to strip to get a good body-shape analysis, how likely is it that these scanners would be used in a space a few meters across? I'm guessing the Kinect FOV is considerably wider than it is tall, in which case the logical thing to do would be to rotate it 90* and put it as close to the subject as possible without cropping their head/feet, in which case I'm guessing the resolution would be much better than 5cm.
You might as well... (Score:1)
Fifth Element (Score:1)
This is great (Score:1)
When this comes to a place (and a website) near me, I'll start buying clothes online.
Up until now I have only bought books, gadgets and teas.
I wear Swedish jeans and like them tight... (Score:3)
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It's ideal for people who don't know what size they wear (like me: clothes shopping is infrequent enough that the information tends to get lost). Saves me from having to try on different sizes.
And here we've arrived at the big drawback of this system: you need more parameters than just the size info on the label to determine whether clothes will fit. Considering the inconsistency in label info between manufacturers, it's going to be a pain to get all the info you need.
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I suppose it depends on the gender and the subculture.
Baggy jeans are popular in the ghettos because they allow for easy concealment of illicit items. That's been entombed in gangster music at this point.
Tight jeans are popular with women, particularly 'skinny jeans', because the thought is that it accentuates their curves and makes them look skinny (I imagine). IMO, the joke's on them: they're only supposed to be worn by truly skinny girls; otherwise, it makes their fat asses more noticeable.
In outdoor wor
CowboyNeal (Score:3)
Buffer overflow attack.
That is all.
If only there was a simpler solution (Score:2)
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I've had jeans in the past that fit around the waist perfectly; in other areas (ahem) it seems the designer forgot that I had some other equipment down there.
And no, they weren't ladies' jeans.
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Most people already know their size, or could find it easily and then try the jeans on in a changing room.
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Most stores sell pants using only the length of the legs and the length at the waist. That's nowhere near enough to fit many body types. If I want them to fit perfectly, I need to have them altered. Buying off the rack, most options in my size will fit very badly: At most I'll find one pair that is tolerable.
I'd love to be able to just skip all the styles that will not fit well at all without having to try them out, and a system like this could theoretically do it.
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I have a large ass inherited from my mother. I feel your pain.
I HAD one single bastion of decency with relaxed and baggy fit sizes and now that places has gone to the dogs ever since they introduced women's clothing into the store. Its like since they did that they make the fucking mens clothes in a similar style to the women's. There are only like 3 items left that are still the same.
DAMN YOU WHOEVER DOES THE DESIGNING AT MARKS WORK WAREHOUSE!
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Even if you need made to measure clothing this system will not and could not provide those measurements unless you stripped off in front of it so it could accurately measure your shape. Even then it just uses them to look up a database for a matching size of jeans. Anyone who has put on two different brands could tell you that the same measurements could yield totally different fits so it doesn't save you any effort at all.
In
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Already know wha I want/need (Score:4, Insightful)
I already know what jeans fit me. Stores simply refuse to get them in my size since I'm not a hippo.
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I'm only able to find jeans at places like Cabelas or Sportsman's Warehouse now: 32"x34" loose fit bootcut. Everywhere else tends to not have that.
Tubular! (Score:2)
Now that's sorted, can it tell me where to get my toenails cut (even if they're like totally grody)?
Will it make shopping quicker? (Score:2)
I know that TFA says something different... but could this maybe also mean that a 1-time purchase of an Xbox kinect means I can now shop from home (online) and always get clothes that fit perfectly?
Does it mean that somehow I will not even have to try clothes on anymore in the shop?
Will it mean that I will have to spend less time shopping?? That'd be awesome. I hate shopping.
NOMO has provided 3d measured jeans for over 2 yrs (Score:1)
"NOMO grew out of a practical need. The better half of a co-founder kept complaining that she could not find well-fitting jeans from any store."
http://www.nomojeans.com/nomo/how_nomo_works
Just like in the good old times, ... (Score:1, Insightful)
Which will then be defeated by ... (Score:3)
Then I got home and found they were made on different continents. One pair fit pretty close to what the label said (though not exactly the same as the last pair of the same), the other fell right off me. The second pair wasn't even remotely close and I have to wear a belt any time I put them on.
Huh? (Score:2)
While body measuring systems aren't new, using the Xbox Kinect is a much more affordable solution.
I wasn't aware a tape measure was that expensive.
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Tape measures are expensive, minimum wage is somewhere between $20-30k/year. That cost increases quickly as you add locations or expand to a larger space, and require more expensive humans to operate these seemingly inexpensive tape measures. Now throw in the cost of management, hr, benefits, and so on.
The same $20-30k could see these deployed across a chain of stores. Turnover is limited to devices which break down and can be replaced for less than $200. There are fewer teenagers being irresponsible on th
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Tape measures are expensive
Bullshit. [amazon.com]
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But do they make me look fat? (Score:2)
If only I had a machine that could answer that question...
The Kinect is Awesome! (Score:1)