Microsoft ended production of Kinect for Xbox One in October 2017. Kinect has also been used as part of non-game applications in academic and commercial environments, as it was cheaper and more robust than other depth-sensing technologies at the time.
Azure Kinect is a cutting-edge spatial computing developer kit with sophisticated computer vision and speech models, advanced AI sensors, and a range of powerful SDKs that can be connected to Azure AI Services.
You can experience Kinect today, as it lives on in the New York Hall of Science as part of the Connected Worlds exhibition, something which Watson notes wouldn’t be possible without Microsoft’s camera.
The Kinect, a revolutionary device by Microsoft for Xbox 360 that uses body movements as a controller, expanding into applications like 3-D imaging and more.
The Kinect’s discontinuation wasn’t a single event, but a gradual decline fueled by a confluence of factors. The core reasons lie in technology limitations, lack of compelling software, privacy concerns, and a shift in Microsoft’s overall strategy.
What kind of “questions” can the Kinect ask in its twenty questions? Simplified version: “is the pixel at that offset in the background?” Real version: “how does the (normalized) depth at that pixel compare to this pixel?” [see Shotton et al, equation 1]