Microsoft Kills Kinect Again

Microsoft is discontinuing the Kinect, again. The Verge explains: The company officially stopped manufacturing the depth camera and microphone in 2017 and brought it back in a new form in 2019 as the Azure Kinect Developer Kit. Now, Microsoft is ending production of that, too, but it has partnered with some outside companies to provide options available for people who need similar types of devices.

If you want to get one of the remaining Azure Kinect Developer Kits, they'll be available to buy through the end of October or "until supplies last," Microsoft's Swati Mehta said in a post on the company's website. If you already have one, Mehta promises that you can keep using it "without disruption." "As the needs of our customers and partners evolve, we regularly update our products to best support them," Mehta wrote. "From time to time, this includes introducing new opportunities, as well as retiring products. We have made the decision to end production of Azure Kinect Developer Kit, but this is far from the end of this technology as it will continue to be available through our partner ecosystem." One alternate suggestion from Mehta is Orbbec's Femto Bolt, which uses the depth camera module found in the Azure Kinect Developer Kit.

Need to get glasses

[quonset]

One alternate suggestion from Mehta is Orbbec's Femto Bolt,

For whatever reason, I initially read that as Orbbec's Fem Bot.

Can't wait to see how my day goes.

Re:

[Local ID10T]

a Fem Toe Bot. For the techno-foot-fetishists.

Re:

[Tablizer]

> For whatever reason, I initially read that as Orbbec's Fem Bot.

Whaddya mean "for whatever reason"? The reason is clear: you're a horny lonely male like most slashdotters.

When do the patents expire?

[ChunderDownunder]

Surely if a technology is ahead of its time you don't bury it - either open source it or sell the IP to a venture capitalist who will continue to develop it.

(And yes I read the article but buying a third party product with an essentially orphaned stack doesn't fill me with confidence. Companies such as HP were launching Windows 10 Phone products in the dying days of Lumia too.)

Re:When do the patents expire?

[drinkypoo]

Surely if a technology is ahead of its time you don't bury it - either open source it or sell the IP to a venture capitalist who will continue to develop it.

They didn't invent it, they just licensed it.
As such they cannot bury it, they can only stop distributing it.

Re:

[tysonedwards]

Ding, ding, ding! Licensed from PrimeSense, which Apple acquired nearly a decade ago. Feels like that license was not perpetual.

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[tlhIngan]

Ding, ding, ding! Licensed from PrimeSense, which Apple acquired nearly a decade ago. Feels like that license was not perpetual.

No, PrimeSense was used in the original Kinect, which used structured light to detect depth. (Basically you project a pattern and how that pattern gets distorted reveals depth data).

The second generation Kinect used in the Xbox One used a time of flight camera, which is an older technology that basically records how long light took to go from the sensor to the world and back again.

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[Chris Mattern]

"Surely if a technology is ahead of its time you don't bury it"

Sometimes a technology isn't ahead of its time. It's just stupid.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Intel RealSense

[JBMcB]

Intel has been making depth cameras for a while, and from what I hear it has an OK SDK.

https://www.intelrealsense.com... [intelrealsense.com]

Pricey, though, as they are intended for commercial applications. The magic behind Kinect was that it was relatively cheap, and worked really well.

Re:

[Luckyo]

Did it work really well? One of the main reasons this got nixed was just how damn inaccurate the thing was in the end, making most games using it play themselves even without any meaningful inputs. Because game developers quickly figured out just how low quality of an input kinect actually provided.

Efficacy

[JBMcB]

I've only used Kinect in 3rd part applications at Maker Faire, and they worked well. I've never had experience using them for X-Box games. Maybe the X-Box didn't have enough spare CPU power for it to work well for games?

Re:

[Luckyo]

Don't forget that when you're doing a demo, you can do a very narrow, tightly controlled experience which will feel very accurate even for highly inaccurate systems.

Games were actual real life usage.

Re:

[jacks smirking reven]

Real Sense was also discontinued by Intel

https://www.therobotreport.com... [therobotreport.com]

At my previous company the devs used Kinect's to do motion and gesture tracking. Once the Azure units were DOA I switched them over the SteroLabs Zed cameras and they have been terrific. Great SDK, packed with features, pretty affordable.

https://www.stereolabs.com/zed... [stereolabs.com]

Oh My God they killed Kinect

[rossdee]

You bastards!

Will they finally do VR now on Xbox?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Kinect is in the rear view. You can't play the games on newer Xbox consoles through backwards compatibility even though the hardware can connect through USB. They ported the games to Xbox One, but stripped out the Kinect functionality even though Xbox One famously shipped with the Kinect 2.0 by default...

Is this setting the stage for console VR on Xbox? Todd Howard of the Bethesda Microsoft division has a passion for VR, and Microsoft developed Minecraft for PSVR. Roblox is getting new VR support, RecRo

Re:

[tysonedwards]

If that were the case, they wouldn't have laid off the Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens teams in February.

Re:

[HBI]

Those dudes were on borrowed time anyway. If it wasn't for that Army deal (IVAS), this would have happened years ago.

Wait... what?

[jd]

You can only buy it until supplies last? In other words, you can buy it until they have some to sell you?

This is typical Microsoft. Not content with ruining products, they're now embracing, extending and extinguishing the English language.

I still can't believe

[dicobalt]

they forced people to buy the Kinect by packing it with the Xbox One. Many promises and no good deliveries. Imagine the price competitive advantage if Microsoft had nixed the Kinect and removed the cost of it from a standalone Xbox One. Microsoft would've dominated the console market, but instead they began their decline. Microsoft got high on it's own hype supply.

Re:

[tysonedwards]

Kinect failed from poor marketing. From a technical standpoint, there were so many great possibilities, some of which never released publicly. For example, I helped write a biofeedback module for the game Alien Isolation that would measure if the user appeared bored, frustrated, angry, enjoying, etc. and then provide feedback to the Director subsystem to affect the Xenomorph, and could even adjust level geometry. That way, if the user was having fun, you could heighten the stakes, or allow more enemies so y

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Good start.

[TractorBarry]

That's a good start. Hopefully they'll soon get round to killing Windows 11 too !

Re:

[jd]

No, that would reduce the net evil by too much. Microsoft do a careful optimisation process, seeking to maximise profits and evil at the same time, as advised by Clippy.

sweat

[fluffernutter]

I have a Kinect and still use it. I found that it was very accurate in detecting where your body was and thus encouraged full body movement in a fun way which was welcome. I would actually sweat when playing video games. Is there any technology to this day that does this better?