3 ms·

So can anyone use the Kinect for commercial applications now, or is this just about Microsoft helping 10 startups? If it's the latter, it's barely newsworthy, a

So can anyone use the Kinect for commercial applications now, or is this just about Microsoft helping 10 startups? If it's the latter, it's barely newsworthy, and it shows how hard it is for Microsoft to imagine losing even a bit of control on their products and what you do with them.

statictype 15y ago
and it shows how hard it is for Microsoft to imagine losing even a bit of control on their products and what you do with them. Historically, Microsoft trying to exert control over how exactly their product is used has not been a problem anyone has had. If anything, one could argue that their product's quality (perceived and real) has been diminished by giving 3rd party developers too much freedom to run amok.
- regularfry 15y ago
  Well, historically speaking, I can't think of a product that has been quite so community-driven as the Kinect. I don't think anything has "escaped their grasp" in quite the same way. To give a counter-example, while it's been a while since I was involved in Windows development, I do remember an instance where a developer released a unit testing plugin that happened to be compatible with VS Express, and was forced to withdraw it at Microsoft's insistence. There was no quality issue there (not that I recall, anyway), it was purely a market segmentation and control ploy to ensure that anyone who wanted "serious" functionality had to buy VS Pro.
pavlov 15y ago
The licensing situation with the various SDKs used for the Kinect is complicated. This effectively prevents many kind of commercial applications at the moment. (I've done a commercial UI prototype using the Kinect, so I've researched this a bit.) There are two high-level SDKs that you can use to build Kinect applications relatively easily. The first is OpenNI+NITE by PrimeSense, the company that designed the sensor used in the Kinect. The other is Microsoft's own Kinect SDK which is based on C#. Both of these have very restrictive licenses. If you're not a hobbyist or an academic, there's no clear path to acquiring a license that would allow you to deploy applications. I imagine PrimeSense is happy to license their toolkit, but I have no idea about the price -- I'd imagine it's not cheap. The Microsoft SDK is going to be available for commercial licensing next year, but the terms are not known yet (AFAIK). There is a third option for building Kinect applications, and this is the one I chose for my software. Instead of using the high-level SDKs, you can access the raw depth camera data from the sensor using a free driver. The data is quite clean because the Kinect does a lot of processing internally, so all you need to do is build the high-level interface -- i.e. interpreting the depth data to detect people and gestures, or whatever it is that your app needs to do. This way, the resulting app is not tied to the PrimeSense or Microsoft SDKs.
- vladoh 15y ago
  There are actually companies in Germany using Kinects for controlling in the production industry, As far as I know they use exactly the low-level driver (libfreenect).
- rbanffy 15y ago
  Why use a Kinect instead of building your product on the PrimeSense device?
  - pavlov 15y ago
    PrimeSense doesn't make devices, they just build the sensor and SDK. Asus has licensed the sensor for a Kinect-like product for PCs, but it's still not available off-the-shelf. It also won't work with the existing free Kinect drivers, so porting will be needed to switch to the Asus.
    - rbanffy 15y ago
      If you are the one building a product, then it makes sense using the PrimeSense thingie instead of a fully assembled Kinect. Asus should embrace the free drivers, BTW, and make whatever they build compatible with them. But that would, probably, have a very negative impact on their Windows OEM pricing...
      - pavlov 15y ago
        Sure, if the budget is big enough, it makes sense to go to PrimeSense directly rather than messing around with Kinects. Unfortunately the project I made was nothing like that. The client was a major Finnish multinational tech company (one that doesn't make phones), but their R&D is so backwards and completely oriented towards incremental improvements that this project had to be sneaked in through the marketing budget, using whatever crumbs of money they had left.
        rbanffy 15y ago
        I understand your pain. I have my own long history of projects that flew from start to finish below corporate radar.

statictype 15y ago

and it shows how hard it is for Microsoft to imagine losing even a bit of control on their products and what you do with them. Historically, Microsoft trying to exert control over how exactly their product is used has not been a problem anyone has had. If anything, one could argue that their product's quality (perceived and real) has been diminished by giving 3rd party developers too much freedom to run amok.

regularfry 15y ago
Well, historically speaking, I can't think of a product that has been quite so community-driven as the Kinect. I don't think anything has "escaped their grasp" in quite the same way. To give a counter-example, while it's been a while since I was involved in Windows development, I do remember an instance where a developer released a unit testing plugin that happened to be compatible with VS Express, and was forced to withdraw it at Microsoft's insistence. There was no quality issue there (not that I recall, anyway), it was purely a market segmentation and control ploy to ensure that anyone who wanted "serious" functionality had to buy VS Pro.

pavlov 15y ago

The licensing situation with the various SDKs used for the Kinect is complicated. This effectively prevents many kind of commercial applications at the moment. (I've done a commercial UI prototype using the Kinect, so I've researched this a bit.) There are two high-level SDKs that you can use to build Kinect applications relatively easily. The first is OpenNI+NITE by PrimeSense, the company that designed the sensor used in the Kinect. The other is Microsoft's own Kinect SDK which is based on C#. Both of these have very restrictive licenses. If you're not a hobbyist or an academic, there's no clear path to acquiring a license that would allow you to deploy applications. I imagine PrimeSense is happy to license their toolkit, but I have no idea about the price -- I'd imagine it's not cheap. The Microsoft SDK is going to be available for commercial licensing next year, but the terms are not known yet (AFAIK). There is a third option for building Kinect applications, and this is the one I chose for my software. Instead of using the high-level SDKs, you can access the raw depth camera data from the sensor using a free driver. The data is quite clean because the Kinect does a lot of processing internally, so all you need to do is build the high-level interface -- i.e. interpreting the depth data to detect people and gestures, or whatever it is that your app needs to do. This way, the resulting app is not tied to the PrimeSense or Microsoft SDKs.

vladoh 15y ago
There are actually companies in Germany using Kinects for controlling in the production industry, As far as I know they use exactly the low-level driver (libfreenect).
rbanffy 15y ago
Why use a Kinect instead of building your product on the PrimeSense device?
- pavlov 15y ago
  PrimeSense doesn't make devices, they just build the sensor and SDK. Asus has licensed the sensor for a Kinect-like product for PCs, but it's still not available off-the-shelf. It also won't work with the existing free Kinect drivers, so porting will be needed to switch to the Asus.
  - rbanffy 15y ago
    If you are the one building a product, then it makes sense using the PrimeSense thingie instead of a fully assembled Kinect. Asus should embrace the free drivers, BTW, and make whatever they build compatible with them. But that would, probably, have a very negative impact on their Windows OEM pricing...
    - pavlov 15y ago
      Sure, if the budget is big enough, it makes sense to go to PrimeSense directly rather than messing around with Kinects. Unfortunately the project I made was nothing like that. The client was a major Finnish multinational tech company (one that doesn't make phones), but their R&D is so backwards and completely oriented towards incremental improvements that this project had to be sneaked in through the marketing budget, using whatever crumbs of money they had left.
      - rbanffy 15y ago
        I understand your pain. I have my own long history of projects that flew from start to finish below corporate radar.