
Asus working on Kinect laptop, compatible with Windows 8 - ViolentJason
http://www.winbeta.org/news/asus-working-kinect-laptop-compatible-windows-8
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r00fus
So the panopticon gains new eyes... Is it just me that covers my laptop's
webcam during use? (I use tape+microfiber so I can use the webcam by unpeeling
for the rare times I need it)

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lunarscape
No. You're not the only one and, contrary to what detractors will say, it's
far from paranoid. As an example- a friend of mine was wondering why it would
occasionally catch his webcam light flash. I dug around and found Prey
installed, clearly taking shots at regular intervals.

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nitrogen
ASUS is a direct licensee from PrimeSense for their depth sensing technology
for the ASUS Xtion/Xtion Pro. I wonder whether there's a difference between
that hardware and the Kinect-branded system that's going into this laptop.

[http://us.estore.asus.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=3...](http://us.estore.asus.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=3397)

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Qworg
The Xtion is depth sensing only - a Kinect branded sensor would likely have
both RGB and depth, like the other Kinects.

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nitrogen
The Xtion Pro Live for $200 is depth, RGB, and audio. The Xtion Pro for $150
is depth only.

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togasystems
Kinect would work well on large multi-display systems. I think the laptop is
too small of a device for the motion capture to be effective.

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Qworg
The new Kinect hardware has a "near mode" and there's been discussions of
adding upper body skeleton tracking, as well as gesture recognition.

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tom_b
Anyone have any insight to why the article says the Kinect for Windows will be
$250 vs the $150 regular prices of Kinect for the XBox?

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cooldeal
Because MS subsidizes the Kinect for XBox and makes back that money whenever
the buyer buys Kinect games. MS gets no such cut of Windows programs that's
why the real hardware cost is reflected.

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Qworg
MS also has to fund the Kinect SDK team and Microsoft Research that develops
new applications for the Kinect.

Examples include Kinect Fusion (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quGhaggn3cQ>)
and the Holodesk (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHL5tJ9ja_w>).

