D-Link brings AI-powered person detection to its home security cameras

Ahead of CES, D-Link is bringing new features to its home security cameras. Today, the company announced that its devices can now detect people and breaking glass. The added capabilities are powered by AI that runs on the edge, and D-Link says it's a...

Auto-tracking Dartboard Makes Everyone a Pro

When you’re at the pub, drinking all night and playing darts, I bet your aim is pretty bad. For most of us, hitting the bulls-eye becomes harder the more you drink. Not when you’re playing with Mark Rober’s motion-tracking dart board though. This board makes everyone hit the bulls-eye (if they use the right dart.)

It automatically re-positions itself based on the trajectory of the dart thrown at it. At least it makes you feel the thrill of victory, even if that victory is hollow and your lack of skill has earned you nothing. It also has the capability of intentionally missing the target no matter how good a dart player you are.

Rober and his friend spent three years designing, building, and perfecting this dartboard. It uses six Vicon motion-tracking cameras, and standard darts that have been upgraded with infrared reflectors.

It takes only 200 milliseconds for the onboard computer to predict the trajectory of a thrown dart, and another 200 milliseconds for the dartboard’s six stepper motors to move it into position. Before impact, the system can even refine the trajectory tracking and reposition the board as many as 100 times to make sure the dart hits the center.

This won’t help you if you are miles off and throw the dart on the opposite side of the room though. If you throw that badly, it’s time to stop anyway before you kill someone.

[via Sploid]

Inversion Project Lets You Go Wireless with the Oculus Rift: Kinectic

Last November we heard about VRcade, a virtual reality system that lets the user move around while wearing a VR headset, thanks to wireless wearable electronics and cameras. A company called Zero Latency is working on the Inversion Project, a very similar setup for VR poster child Oculus Rift.

oculus rift wireless inversion project by zero latency 620x370magnify

Details are scarce about the Inversion Project, but I’m going to bet that it also requires cameras or motion sensors aside from the hardware that’s worn or carried by the user. The video below demonstrates the technology with the help of a simple zombie game disappointingly called Zombie Fort: Smackdown and not Rift 4 Dead.

Zero Latency will demo the Inversion Project on Feb. 16 at Melbourne Australia’s Pause Festival. Hopefully details will trickle out of the event soon after.

[via PSFK]

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WiTrack Detects 3D Motion without Using Cameras or Controllers: Sight Unseen

As shown by the Kinect, today’s cameras are powerful and cheap enough to provide accurate motion tracking. The same feat can be achieved by making the subject carry a motion sensor or a tracking device of some sort. But a group at MIT CSAIL led by Dina Katabi have come up with a way to track motion and body parts in 3D using only radio signals.

witrack 3d motion tracking by Dina Katabi and MIT CSAIL 620x350magnify

Katabi et al call their technology WiTrack. The current prototype uses four antennas, one to transmit the signals and three to receive the signals that bounce back from subjects. The radio signals that WiTrack uses are apparently a hundred times weaker than Wi-Fi signals. Because it doesn’t require a camera to work, WiTrack can work through walls, assuming the wall lets the signal pass through. For instance, it can be used to interact with devices even if you’re not in the same room as them. Also, because the subject doesn’t need to carry any tracking device, it might be more suited to full motion gaming compared to the likes of the Wii, the PS Move and even newer tech like the PrioVR.

While WiTrack seems really practical, after watching that video I think we all quickly realized that it can be used to discreetly violate our privacy as well. Forget about tinfoil hats, we might need to make lead-lined houses.

[via MIT via Engadget]