Besides drinking and driving, sleeping and driving is the next pair of things people should never do. As it may … 
Redmond seems to have more grandiose ideas for Connected Car than it's let on before, judging from a recent help wanted ad on its site. Reading more like PR for its car-based plans, the job notice waxes poetically about using "the full power of the Microsoft ecosystem" in an upcoming auto platform with tech such as Kinect, Azure, Windows 8 and Windows Phone. Those products would use face-tracking, speech and gestures to learn your driving habits and safely guide or entertain you on the road, according to the software engineer listing. It also hints that everything would be tied together using Azure's cloud platform, so that your favorite music or shortcuts would follow you around, even if you're not piloting your own rig. All that makes its original Connected Car plans from 2009 seem a bit laughable -- check the original video for yourself after the break.
Continue reading Microsoft job posting hints at Connected Car strategy: Azure, Kinect and WP8
Microsoft job posting hints at Connected Car strategy: Azure, Kinect and WP8 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jun 2012 12:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink
SlashGear | 
Microsoft Careers | Email this | Comments 
Sony's PlayStation division may have been the main focus this week at E3, but Sony Online Entertainment has something unique of its own to show off for MMORG players. Specifically, folks who are into the PC title Everquest II will soon be able to access a facial recognition feature called SOEmote (S-O Emote). It's no secret that these types of games require massive amounts of communication between players, and SOEmote is an attempt to make in-game conversations more personal than ever. Utilizing any webcam, the software is able map and track your noggin at 64 points, allowing your onscreen character to replicate any facial movements you make. We got a chance to mess around with a beta version of the software, and the results are impressive to say the least -- pretty much all of our facial expressions were accurately recreated. Join us past the break for more details and a hands-on faces-on video demo of it in action.
SOEmote tracks our face, transplants our expressions onto an Everquest II persona (faces-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jun 2012 06:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments 
If there's a large display as part of your workstation, you know how difficult it can be to keep track of all of your windows simultaneously, without missing a single update. Now imagine surrounding yourself with three, or four, or five jumbo LCDs, each littered with dozens of windows tracking realtime data -- be it RSS feeds, an inbox or chat. Financial analysts, security guards and transit dispatchers are but a few of the professionals tasked with monitoring such arrays, constantly scanning each monitor to keep abreast of updates. One project from the MIT Media Lab offers a solution, pairing Microsoft Kinect cameras with detection software, then highlighting changes with a new graphical user interface.
Perifoveal Display presents data at normal brightness on the monitor that you're facing directly. Then, as you move your head to a different LCD, that panel becomes brighter, while changes on any of the displays that you're not facing directly (but still remain within your peripheral vision) -- a rising stock price, or motion on a security camera -- are highlighted with a white square, which slowly fades once you turn to face the new information. During our hands-on demo, everything worked as described, albeit without the instant response times you may expect from such a platform. As with most Media Lab projects, there's no release date in sight, but you can gawk at the prototype in our video just after the break.
Perifoveal Display tracks head positioning, highlights changing data on secondary LCDs (hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
