Kinect Hackers Are Changing the Future of Robotics | Hacker News Reader

Kinect Hackers Are Changing the Future of Robotics

wired.com

48 pointsspottiness13 comments

BTW it's not just the hardware on the Kinect that's so great...the computer vision component is simply incredible and Andrew Blake's team at MS Research Cambridge deserves the kudos on that.

They're solving a very tough problem and doing it really well.

Anecdotally, as I was interviewing for various academic positions this year, everyone had a few Kinect projects they were working on. This thing has really sparked an enormous resurgence of interest in stereo/3d-related vision research!

Hi. I'm Kyle Machulis, one of the leads on the OpenKinect project mentioned in the article. If anyone's got any questions on where things are going with the project, I'm happy to answer. I also did a talk on the project at Maker Faire that was recorded:

http://fora.tv/2011/05/21/Kyle_Machulis_OpenKinect

Right now industrial robots capable of performing complex tasks which require visual processing are very, VERY expensive.

I don't recall exact prices for that one that de-bones ham, but I do recall it was significant chunk of change.

Do you think your work could result in drastically cheaper industrial robots?

Willow Garage (http://www.willowgarage.com/) has been doing tons of work with the kinect for all sorts of robotics use via their ROS platform, all BSD licensed. That'll provide the software/algorithms needed to get the camera integrated into neat robotics work.

As for whether or not we'll see the kinect on Jarvis's next bung dropper, well, we may want slightly more hardened technology directing roboknives than the camera you set next to your TV so you can pet virtual kittens (this statement excludes anyone involved in Survival Research Labs). But the idea is there, sure.

It sounds like how the PS3 commoditized parallel processing thanks to its cheap Cell processor. In a few days it shattered all records of Seti@Home (or was it Folding@home?), and researchers bought PS3s (sometimes building impressive clusters) for all kind of computations.

Take something that sells for $10 and find a way to offer it for $1. And not before long, you can expect an ecosystem to flourish.

Technology getting commoditized is a beautiful thing.

And a company called ThriXXX built a rudimentary sex game that allows players to rub women’s body parts with a creepy disembodied hand.

I was going to ask what the market for this was... but when I compared it to some of the other stuff in that genre that already exists, I guess it isn't that much of a stretch.

Hands free control is very important in some industries.

That was a great article. Does anyone know how difficult it is to get the projects mentioned up and running on a Mac?

OS X is a bit difficult in that it requires a patched libusb, but we provide the patch along with instructions to build in the software. Worse comes to worse, visit #openkinect on Freenode and there's lots of people that can help out in real time.

Related: Jennifer Kahn, Profiles, "The Visionary," The New Yorker, July 11, 2011, p. 46 < http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/11/110711fa_fact_... >

Here's a pdf: https://docs.google.com/viewer?pid=explorer&srcid=0ByF_2...

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