Most of the consumer electronics products that are not recognized by the masses cannot escape the fate of discontinuation, they may be disposed of at a low price or returned to the factory to be dismantled, but some will find their niche again in another new field.
Microsoft’s Kinect camera is probably the latter such existence.
According to Jason Scott, a well-known video game historian, he found at Newark International Airport in the United States, the site’s security monitoring equipment basically used Microsoft’s Kinect cameras, which are suspended one by one on the bracket of the extension arm, which is supposed to be used for face recognition.
Interestingly, Jason was able to determine that the devices were from Microsoft because the camera housings still had the Xbox logo on them, meaning they were supposed to be sold to gamers.
Microsoft’s initial Kinect came to market in 2010, and in its original vision, Microsoft had hoped to rely on the Kincet’s accurate facial and body recognition system to allow players to play directly with gestures and voice commands without a physical handle.
But because there is no excellent game content support, this body feeling enthusiasm did not last long, after Microsoft also tried to boost the development of Kinect games through the form of bundled host, but in disguise to pull up the initial Xbox One launch price, than the same period of the PS4 expensive nearly 100 dollars, indirectly dragged down the sales of Microsoft’s current generation of game consoles.
Today, it’s probably also a little difficult to get a new Kinect camera on the market. In October 2017, Microsoft announced that it would discontinue the Kinect device, and the subsequent Xbox models even removed the standalone Kinect interface.
But now, when Microsoft said “discontinued”, it probably meant that it would not be sold to the general public, while we can still see Kinect in the enterprise sector.
At MWC 2019 this year, Microsoft unveiled a camera for the enterprise called Azure Kinect. It is a device that integrates a depth sensor, HD camera and array microphone, mainly used in medical, life science and retail industries.
Retailer AVA Retail, for example, is using it in unmanned stores, and Kinect cameras have been seen hanging from the ceilings of supermarkets like Walmart; others, like medical systems provider Ocuvera, are deploying the cameras in hospitals and nursing homes to predict the likelihood of elderly patients falling out of bed so that medical staff can be notified.
Some of the technology that made it out of the lab because of Kinect is also starting to be used on our smartphones. When the first generation of Kinect was introduced, the 3D face recognition solution was powered by the Israeli company PrimeSense.
The company was acquired by Apple in 2013, and the “structured light” technology we see on full-screen iPhones today is actually very similar to Kinect.
IGN commented, “Perhaps the days of Kinect as a game controller are over, but now it’s back in the public eye in another capacity, even though we may not know it at all.
Post time: Sep-28-2021