Kinect, Korean Knight

Kinect, Microsoft’s motion sensor, has been used for many cool things outside gaming, including a Minority Report-style hand detection. There’s even a community built around Kinect’s alternative applications, Kinect Hacks.

However, in South Korea they have taken the endeavor one step further, and now the Korean military is using Kinect sensors to monitor the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), which separates North Korea and South Korea.

DON’T MOVE! Unless you’re playing Fruit Ninja Kinect. In that case, go on.

Thanks to the programmer Jae Kwan Ko‘s efforts, the Kinect-based system can discern the difference between animals and people, alerting nearby outposts if a human is detected crossing the border illegally. Although it was installed in August, its existence wasn’t publicly known until now.

According to Ko, the system will be upgraded with heart rate and heat detection. I hope they don’t wait too much to add that; if not, how are they going to spot border crossing vampires?

Source: The Verge

Google Glass Gaming?

A group of Google developers prototyped 5 simple minigames to test some of the gadget capabilities. According to them, “with tons of tiny sensors and a screen that fits neatly above the eye, Glass is an exciting new place to play”. Here’s what they put together:

However, they aren’t the only ones to see gaming potential for Google Glass. Back in November, Niccolo de Masi (Glu Mobile CEO) told VentureBeat that he considers Google’s wearable device “a brand new paradigm for interactivity, so it’s a brand new paradigm for games”. In his opinion, it could even trigger another “iPhone moment”. His company has recently developed Spellista, a word game exclusive to Google Glass.

“My prototype is cheaper”

You can learn more about the Google Glass minigames here.

Source: Polygon