Microsoft is expected to include a next-generation version of the Kinect with the Xbox 720, but it looks like the company has even bigger plans for the motion-sensing camera than just that.
Eventually, Microsoft wants to integrate Kinect into many different kinds of computing devices, building it into tablets like the Surface Pro and RT, laptops and possibly even televisions.
At Microsoft's TechForum in Seattle, Craig Mundie, senior advisor to the CEO, revealed a new envisioning center at the company's campus, containing multiple demonstrations of Kinect-enabled devices.
In an interview with The Verge, Mundie said his goal is to shrink the Kinect down to a size reasonable enough for Microsoft to build it into a suite of devices.
"You want to be as cheap as possible and physically as small as possible," he said. "My dream is to get a Kinect into the bezel of something like this [Surface tablet]. It's not gonna happen tomorrow, but we can see a path towards that sort of thing."
Microsoft has already succeeded in decreasing the Kinect's size somewhat. As The Verge toured the envisioning sensor, the site found the sensors to be thinner and smaller than the model currently on the market. Was it the Kinect 2? Microsoft wouldn't say.
On March 5, the company's research division posted a new video on YouTube (watch below) demonstrating advancements in Kinect functionality that enabled the device to read whether your palm was open or closed. Users could also zoom in and out of maps and recreate multi-touch style interaction. We're not sure if this is the kind of tech displayed at Microsoft's envisioning center, but it's clearly a sign of what's to come.
Size isn't the only obstacle keeping Mundie's dream from becoming reality, though. One of the problems Microsoft has encountered is getting the Kinect to work outdoors.
"It turns out it's infrared so when you go out in the sunlight the sun is a big infrared source that drowns it out," he said. "There's a whole bunch of problems, not just miniaturization, in designing the sensors so they actually do what you expect them to do in all of the environments."
