Engadget Readers Choice Awards Microsoft Kinect Peripheral of the Year
Last week Engadget announced their Readers Choice awards, no less than three Microsoft products were featured including the Kinect as peripheral of the year.
Engadget just announced their 2012 readers choice awards. I am taking a moment to look at each of the Microsoft products that earned an award. Last week I talked about SmartPhone of the Year: Nokia Lumia 920 , and Tablet of the Year: Surface RT. Today I’d like to talk a bit about the final Microsoft product selected by Engadget readers:
Peripheral of the year: Microsoft Kinect
The Kinect lends itself to innovation. With a price point of somewhere around $250-$300 in Canada, the average developer can purchase a device that captures images, multi-directional sound, and 3D motion. Microsoft’s release of the Kinect for Windows complete with APIs means developers no longer need turn to hacking to leverage this capabilities of the device.
Being a Star Wars and Star Trek fan, one of my favorite Kinect projects this year was developed by a team at the Human Media Lab at Queens university. They used the Kinect sensors to create a 3D holographic projection called Telehuman.
The Kinect is also a popular feature in Imagine Cup entries.
- Canada’s team Greeni from George Brown College used the Kinect to help control building environmental controls to save energy.
- Team HealthConnect from Spain used the Kinect as a way of collecting information from patients to provide remote healthcare.
- Team Technology Lanterns from Qatar used a helmet mounted Kinect camera to help create a system that would allow the visually impaired to sense where objects are located using sound frequency and providing information about their surroundings by reading customized tags.
It’s clear the Kinect has empowered developers around the world, I can’t wait to see the Kinect projects at Imagine Cup 2013!