Here Comes Yet Another Touch-Free User Device Called Fraunhofer FIT

The German-designed device can translate you and a partner's hand and finger movements in real time. The software makes sort of a skeletal system analysis sort of like a Kinect, but exclusively for the hands. Currently, reflections from wrist watches and even the palms of your hands can sometimes confuse the hardware/software package.

Pretty sweet video after the jump.

Microsoft Kinect Priced, Bundles Announced

When it releases on November 4, Kinect will have a suggested retail price of $149.99 in the US (£129.99 UK/€149.99 in EU), and come bundled with the game Kinect Adventures.

Kinect games will be suggested by MSFT to be retailed at $49.99/£39.99. At least one third-party game will follow that standard. Microsoft has announced that the third party Dance Central, from Harmonix and MTV Games, will retail for the suggested $49.99/£39.99.

There will also be a 4 GB console/Kinect bundle for $299 (£249.99/€299.99), the bundle will include an Xbox 360 console, the Kinect sensor and Kinect Adventures. This is the new $199, 4GB model that has been rumored but not announced, which gives a $50 break to new gamers.

Draw 3D Images With Beyond Input Pen

The nifty collapsible Beyond pen was developed at the MIT media lab, and is used in conjunction with a head-tracking camera to augment the 3D perspective, which in changes the table display imagery, based on your perspective. the pen itself, is trying to mimic vertical input by turning the collapsing action into a partial virtual pen. The pen itself is tracked with 2 IR markers and a sensor.

This does not quite seem nearly as accurate as the Rhonda 3D drawing method, but new input devices are always a good thing, as we can learn from them.

Rhonda 3D drawing tools:

Christie 3D CAVE Owns

Christie, known for expensive, high-end projectors, is 1-upping themselves. This time they are making a 3D CAVE for Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, using 8 of their UHD 1920x1920 (3.68 megapixels) 3 chip DLP 3D projectors.

"The ICB's CAVE facility is a powerful new tool that is helping us attract the best and brightest minds in the world," remarked Dr. Harel Weinstein. "We are able to explore images at the molecular and cellular level with a clarity and precision that was previously unattainable. Images of tissues and biological objects can be twisted, turned and expanded, viewed layer by layer with the flick of the wrist, allowing for an unmatched level of inspection that engulfs researchers in colors and details."

Sounds good, but I can only imagine this in a more "fun" setting, like a game environment. Oh, I guess that science and medicine is more important, somehow.

Can Finger-Tracking Be Done With Kinect? How About A Standard Webcam? Why, Yes. Yes It Can.

Yes, I have proof that Kinect can do it, but first, lets talk about another tech. Just last month, there was an announcement from MIT researchers Robert Wang and Jovan Popovic of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, about a tech they had developed which tracks your hands and individual fingers, all with a simple webcam and some cheap Lycra gloves, which have been designed with a colorful pattern that allows the software to decipher their place in 3D space. I always knew that computers saw the world in '80s-vision! I mean, those gloves tell it like it is.

Rest of the story + videos after the jump:

Hero III Gives Users the Sensation of Feel For Objects Viewed In 3D

Here we see Hero III, which is sort of a robotic hand, or reverse-hand, which mimics the feel of actual objects, right down to the texture.

Its kind of cool seeing these technologies being mixed together. One of the reasons that I chose to include (at some point) user-sensory technology such as 3D and surround sound, is that I believe that it is the human interface that has to evolve first. These technologies will end up being added together, like layers. The whole, as they say, will be greater than the sum of their parts.

Source: Switched.com

Checkout the video after the jump.