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AI Input Devices Microsoft Games Hardware News

Kinect Can Detect Clenched Fist 65

mikejuk writes "Microsoft Research is currently having a Techfest at Redmond where it is showing off a lot of new work. The latest work on the Kinect uses the same sort of machine-learning approach to distinguish between an open hand and a clenched fist. Although there are no details, its general method was to use a large number of images of people's hands and supervised training to distinguish between open and closed hands. The learning algorithm is based on a forest of decision trees, which is the same general method used to implement the skeleton tracking. Being able to detect an open or closed hand might not seem to be much of an advance, and certainly not as good as a multi-gesture touch screen interface, but it is enough to allow the user interface to distinguish a "pick up" or "grip" gesture. So you can move the hands within an image, close both hands to grip the image points and move apart to zoom. You can't get the software at the moment, but it has been promised for the next version of the Kinect SDK for Windows along with the long awaited 3D scanner Kinect Fusion."
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Kinect Can Detect Clenched Fist

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  • GTA (Score:5, Funny)

    by meta-monkey ( 321000 ) on Thursday March 07, 2013 @11:46AM (#43105593) Journal

    I hope the next Grand Theft Auto game is Kinect-enabled for pimpslapping.

    • What I don't get it why isn't there more noise about a wii remote-esque controller for the Xbox? Seems like that would complement the Kinect wonderfully, the one catches posture and absolute position, while the other catches the subtleties of acceleration and orientation of your hands and provides buttons for precision input. Throw in a VR helmet when the Occulus Rift hits the stores ad you'd have all the pieces to take the first steps into consumer-grade VR.

    • Since when is Slashdot PC? Can't even say Bitchslapping anymore?
      • Since when is Slashdot PC? Can't even say Bitchslapping anymore?

        Slashdot has always been PC... in the sense that it is anti-Apple.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        It's a bitchslap if you use your palm, it's a pimpslap if you use the back of your hand.

  • I get that this could be great for mimicking the mouse click/drag, or for interactive boxing games. But what about its law enforcement potential? How long until this is used to detect possible domestic violence?

    • by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

      You think most domestic violence is done by people who can afford a brand new console and peripherals?

      If it ever was possible, people would just leave the room to do that sort of thing.

      • You think most domestic violence is done by people who can afford a brand new console and peripherals?

        If it ever was possible, people would just leave the room to do that sort of thing.

        Well, there have been several recent incidents involving violence by people who weren't allowed to play video games when they wanted to.

        Reminds me a little bit of Fredrick Brown's story "The Little Black Bag"...

      • Yeah, because it's only moneyless hillbillies that engage in spouse beating.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Years ago, I had a black dude come in with his kids and ask me about xbox at my college job, he was asking release dates or something, and I told him you could find that on the internet... guess what he didn't have. My point is never underestimate people's distortions of priorities.

        • Years ago, I had a black dude come in with his kids and ask me about xbox at my college job, he was asking release dates or something, and I told him you could find that on the internet... guess what he didn't have. My point is never underestimate people's distortions of priorities.

          Don't know if you realize that your statement comes off as having a secondary implication, but that same story works great without the skin color being mentioned:

          Years ago, I had a dude come in with his kids and ask me about xbox at my college job, he was asking release dates or something, and I told him you could find that on the internet... guess what he didn't have. My point is never underestimate people's distortions of priorities.

          If it was intentionally stated, you are a dick. If not I hope I helped.

          - Toast

  • by Kenja ( 541830 ) on Thursday March 07, 2013 @11:48AM (#43105607)
    Cause that would speed up a lot of forum conversations.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by QilessQi ( 2044624 )

      There would be plenty of training data. Users of Microsoft systems employ that gesture frequently.

      • There would be plenty of training data. Users of Microsoft systems employ that gesture frequently.

        I don't have a Kinect, so if I want my 360 to know when I'm pissed off that it did something stupid I have to plug in a microphone so it can hear me say "Fuck you".

    • by Anonymous Coward

      It doesn't detect it because it assumes it is a penis. Don't wave it around, because then the software will interpret it as a penis helicopter, which will get you a perma-ban on Xbox Live.

  • a clenched ***** OMG!

    Sega already beat them to the clentched sphincter http://www.retrojunk.com/commercial/show/10889/sega-saturn-commercial-the-theatre-of-the-eye [retrojunk.com]

  • Can it detect middle finger though? I show it to Kinect all the time, and it seems to be ignoring it.
  • by Antipater ( 2053064 ) on Thursday March 07, 2013 @11:51AM (#43105655)
    The dream of being able to punch someone through the internet took a step forward today.
    • The dream of being able to punch someone through the internet took a step forward today.

      This is nothing. Now every sith lord out there will be able to force chocke through the Internet. Much more satisfying.

    • The dream of getting a HJ through the internet took a step forward today.
    • by Zalbik ( 308903 )

      Posting to undo moderation....

      I wish I could punch the slashdot moderation developers through the internet....

      Somebody +1 funny the parent please!

  • The biggest problem with Kinect controls is the lack of gesturing. This results in users needing to hold their cursor over a control for a couple seconds in order to simulate a click or button press. For obvious reasons, this makes the whole control scheme brutally slow. Even worse was the solution used in Child of Eden, where the user need to push their hand forward, thus making the Kinect controls much more difficult than using a normal controller. Just this one gesture to function like a mouse click w
  • by YesIAmAScript ( 886271 ) on Thursday March 07, 2013 @12:03PM (#43105821)

    The did it at E3 2011 where Kinect Fun Labs was showed.

    The guy demoing it waved his fists around and it tracked them. When he put fingers out on one hand he was able to draw lines on the screen, it saw the finger out.

    In that case and this one too it was clear that this was so close to the limits of what Kinect can resolve that it wasn't going to be reliable in normal use. But it did work on stage.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jso9r6DI9E&t=3m20s [youtube.com]

    MS claimed they would ship this, even named it "Kinect Finger Tracking". But it didn't ship yet. It's likely the current hardware just isn't reliable enough at it.

    • The commercial Kinect cameras are 640x480. Even if that's decent for finger-level tracking close up, a method designed to measure the activities and placements of fingers close to the camera is not going to have enough data to work on hands further away.

      That being said, it does appear that the demo in the video you linked has sufficient discriminatory power that a fist should be relatively easy—he's not exactly holding his hand right up to the lens.

    • ...and continuing on that point [slashdot.org], now that I think about it, all that video shows is tracking the tip of a moving object. That's not really the full hand.
  • Do you still have to make a gun out of your hand and go "pew, pew" when you play FPS?

  • I heard the virtual porn industry suddenly took notice.. Kinect the dots..

    - Jack Off All Trades

  • Unless it can detect chairs (mid-flight of course), then I don't see it being much use for Microsoft!

  • by John Hasler ( 414242 ) on Thursday March 07, 2013 @12:23PM (#43106057) Homepage

    So it knows when you are about to smash it?

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Such things have been speculated about as early as 2008 from what I can tell (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/07/wargames/)... I don't think it's actually the case quite frankly, it seems too far-fetched, but the kinds of science fiction that could be written about the idea -- an entertainment company batting advertisments about for their new video game technology, that can detect a closed fist, a concealed weapon, a facial expression that suggests aggression or a lie.

    That same article linked to a pict

  • Can it read (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NEDHead ( 1651195 ) on Thursday March 07, 2013 @12:44PM (#43106301)

    ASL? That might be useful

  • by Anonymous Coward

    " long awaited 3D scanner Kinect Fusion"

    There are already several open Source implementations in the PCL (pointclouds.org/) so there is no need to wait for Microsoft
    to publish an SDK...

  • https://www.leapmotion.com/ [leapmotion.com]

    And they just announced that they're shipping in May!

    If you haven't heard of Leap Motion, check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_d6KuiuteIA [youtube.com]

    Once you have that type of precision, I would imagine "learning" what a fist is wouldn't be quite as difficult...

  • We can finally actually punch someone in the face over the internet!
  • Next up; determining if that clenched fist is wrapped around something and is moving back and forth along the same mainly vertical path.
  • The Kinect can't even tell the difference between me, my roommate, and our couch and it's lucky if it can find my hands. I'm sure under absolutely perfect conditions with proper surroundings inside a subterranean bunker, it could detect a clenched first 10% of the time. In reality, you'd need a 200x more accurate Leap Motion system to do that. Btw, google that. Their website has an epic video.
  • when, if the webcam sees a clenched fist and angry, set face, it reverts to Windows XP???

  • What is so special about recognizing a fist that requires Kinect? A cheap camera with some visual recognition software can do the same and probably better and quicker. Just saying.

  • It's not easy to detect fingers at a distance with that type of resolution. I hear the Kinect 2 will have a higher resolution (made possibly by the greater bandwidth of USB 3.0) and lower latency. Kinect continues to rock!
  • I'm imagining the DLC for "Rock Band featuring Rihanna".
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