There's no doubt that the PC market is in trouble. And for Intel, that's a real problem -- how do you market yourself when your bread-and-butter processor business is on the decline? By showing what else you can do, apparently. Intel is starting an "...
While Intel’s RealSense 3D scanning technology isn’t particularly new, the application exhibited at CES 2016 by Intel and Uraniom is revolutionary, as it enables gamers to become the stars of Fallout 4 and several other games.
Games where the character’s features can be altered have been around for quite a while now, and people who paid attention to such details spent a lot of time trying to get the character to resemble, even remotely, to themselves. They had to pick a hair color, face shape, type of facial hair, so on and so forth, and at the end of this lengthy process, all that they ended up with was a generic character they shared not more than five features with. Enter Intel’s RealSense 3D scanning technology and Uraniom’s platform for turning raw 3D scans into playable video game avatars, and you end up with a character created in your image that’s roaming around in the open-world environment.
Intel claimed in September 2014 that it would bring 3D scanning to smartphones and tablets in 2015. While there have been a couple of devices equipped with the RealSense technology (most importantly the Dell Venue 8 7840 and the HP Spectre X2), this whole trend hasn’t picked up steam as fast as I would’ve hoped. Maybe implementing depth-sensing cameras into mobile devices is expensive for manufacturers and they don’t want to make their products unapproachable. Personally, I think 3D scanning goes hand in hand with 3D printing, and since that industry has gained a lot of momentum, I think that Intel RealSense should, too.
Erica Griffin, the technology nerd who likes to film stuff, exemplified in a video shot at CES 2016 (that you can watch below) how all of this works. She had her head scanned using an HP Spectre X2 tablet that’s equipped with Intel RealSense R200 depth-sensing cameras. This process is a bit awkward, as someone needs to hold the camera and walk around the subject, who in turn isn’t allowed to move.
According to Intel, the RealSense R200 cameras provides reliable depth information. To facilitate the scanning process and make sure that the resulting avatar looks proper, Uraniom recommends keeping a neutral face, having the neck exposed, the hair (if any) tied back, and homogeneous lighting. The low-res scan was then uploaded to the cloud to render a high-res that can then be adjusted in Uraniom’s avatar editor. Some facial parameters need to be aligned prior to exporting the avatar and importing it into the game. As Erica pointed out in her video, seeing yourself in a game is equal parts amazing and disturbing.
Even though Intel has only exemplified inclusion of avatars in Fallout 4, the technology can be used for several other games, including FIFA 2015, Arma 3, GTA V and The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. Hopefully, more developers of games where character customization makes sense will join the trend.
We heard back in August that Intel was creating a Project Tango developer kit, which also happened to be the first phone to include its RealSense 3D cameras. Now, it's available for pre-order for $399 on Intel's website. The RealSense Smartphone Deve...
DJI-rival Yuneec has a new hexacopter under its Typhoon line of drones, and it's compatible with a collision avoidance module based on Intel's RealSense technology. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich demonstrated the drone during the company's CES keynote toda...
The chip maker has done one of the most interesting keynotes of CES 2015, unveiling all sorts of concepts that had the same technology at their core: the RealSense 3D imaging camera.
If until now we perceived most of the digital world in 2D, it’s time to make the switch to 3D, and Intel is ready to pave the way for this transition using its RealSense 3D imaging camera. Last year, the chip manufacturer showed us how this technology could be implemented in AIO PCs and tablets, but the CES demonstration proved that RealSense could find its way into more familiar scenarios.
When it comes to cooking, we all run of inspiration at some point. Thankfully, there are plenty of websites (allrecipes.com, foodwishes.com, so on and so forth) that can give us some fresh ideas when our mind seems to go blank in the kitchen. But after deciding which dish you’re going to prepare next, you need to either print the step-by-step instructions (that’s so 20th century, isn’t it?) or take the notebook/tablet with you while cooking. The problem is that the kitchen is not exactly the safest environment for mobile devices, as flour or salsa is the last thing that you might want on your keyboard or ports. You might wonder where I’m trying to get with this, and if I’m not simply delusional, getting from CPUs to recipes like that. Well, a notebook or tablet equipped with Intel’s RealSense camera would be able to interpret the gestures you’re making in mid air in order to scroll a webpage or go to the next step.
The way we interact with doors might also suffer some changes. Intel demonstrated how authentication could make its way into more mundane aspects of our lives. If people put a RealSense camera near their door to take 3D images of whoever is knocking, keys could become a thing of the past. Of course, once a person is authenticated, a connection would have to be established between the 3D camera and the electromagnetic lock, so that the door opens. I don’t see this becoming mainstream in the very near future, but it’s definitely something I would use.
Intel is getting involved in new areas, showing that they’re willing to go beyond CPUs, and that can only be a good thing, provided that they maintain the same quality standards.
There's no doubt that the PC market is in trouble. And for Intel, that's a real problem -- how do you market yourself when your bread-and-butter processor business is on the decline? By showing what else you can do, apparently. Intel is starting an "...
We heard back in August that Intel was creating a Project Tango developer kit, which also happened to be the first phone to include its RealSense 3D cameras. Now, it's available for pre-order for $399 on Intel's website. The RealSense Smartphone Deve...
DJI-rival Yuneec has a new hexacopter under its Typhoon line of drones, and it's compatible with a collision avoidance module based on Intel's RealSense technology. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich demonstrated the drone during the company's CES keynote toda...
