The hype of Ebola has died down it seems as news media is now talking again about terrorism and cops fighting innocent men. However, the danger is still there and the danger is big because Ebola spreads through contact of hands. That is a handshake with an Ebola infected person can transmit the virus to your body if you are not taking precautions.
To deal with the deadly disease, the British army asked CDS, a communications solution company rooted in UK, to come up with something that will keep people safe. “After a through research”, CDS says, “they have zeroed in on to the Xbox Kinect and Windows 8.1 operating system to help people possibly infected with Ebola”.
Note that Kinect supports gestures for triggering action and hence there is no direct contact with the machine when people are playing games, learning something using Kinect. The operation is named Operation Gritrock and it is basically a gesture based kiosk that provides information to possibly infected people on saving their lives and on preventing the spread of Ebola.
The Kinect team says:
Having investigated the technological options, CDS selected the Microsoft Kinect for Windows v2 sensor to deliver a sensory, gesture-driven solution. This involved developing a customized Windows 8.1 application using the Kinect application program interface (API). The Microsoft UK Developer Experience team fully supported CDS on the development of the kiosk solution, which was slated to be field tested in January 2015.
Thus, instead of just allowing people to play games, Microsoft is indirectly in the loop to help Ebola victims and to educate people about the potential dangers of Ebola. It also shows how to stop prevent spreading Ebola and how to protect the victim and the caretakers. This is a strange but welcome move by the British Army and the CDS corporation where a gaming device combined with a shunned operating system is providing life saving information. Wonder what will Windows 8.1 haters say.
