"I should probably not be standing this close," I think to myself, as the robot slowly approaches a large tree branch on the floor in front of me. This article is part of our special report on AI, “ The Great AI Reckoning.” It's perhaps a bit premature to get too excited, since nobody's actually slapped one of these babies on a robot yet, but seeing as every single Xbox One will have a new Kinect included in the box, we're looking forward to a whole herd of new sensors being released into the wild. We're talking potential for the new Kinect to be a full-on human-robot interaction tool, with such detailed face tracking and gesture and expression recognition. With all of this new tech crammed into the sensor, we've gotten way beyond just 3D vision. The most detailed demo we've seen is from Wired, which got an early look at the system, and their run through provides a good look at all of these features: In addition to tracking binary things like eyes and mouth open or close, Kinect also estimates your emotional state and whether or not you're paying attention to it.
The sensor tracks color changes in your skin to determine your heartbeat. When combined with a physics model, the sensor can estimate muscle movements and forces.
We're not sure what "high-definition" means, exactly, but it's definitely better, possibly 1080p 60fps better. Obviously, the biggest deal for robotics is the improved 3D sensing.
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