Kinect was originally paired up with the Xbox 360 for its motion-sensing capabilities. This meant that people gaming on the Xbox 360 could use their body and hands to interact with the game. But with Xbox One, this approach was dropped and ultimately the Kinect was discontinued. But today, at Mobile World Congress at Barcelona, Spain, Microsoft has taken the stage to announce the next Kinect bound with Azure services. They are calling it the Azure Kinect.
Azure Kinect announced
The main module is referred to as Azure Kinect Developer Kit or DK. This module consists of the latest AI Sensors innovated by Microsoft for Hololens 2, a 7-microphone array for computer vision and speech recognition, a 12-megapixel RGB camera sensor and a 1-megapixel depth camera sensor. For those who loved working and innovating on Kinect, the Azure Kinect is an intelligent solution offered by Microsoft.
With the Intelligent Edge capabilities of Azure, Microsoft aims to use the Kinect to be used in a variety of scenarios like Healthcare, Engineering, Inventory Management, Self Checkout Stores and much more. This device is capable of imaging a room in 3D, And with various AI algorithms and previously existing Azure Services, Microsoft is aiming to make it a really great and useful device.
It is already being used by Ocuvera to use it to stop patients from falling in hospitals. With its AI capabilities, it can notify the nurse before a patient is falling so that the nurse can check up on that patient to prevent the fall.
It is available for preorder today at $399 and will be available in the United States and China initially.
Read about the Azure Kinect Developer Kite here on microsoft.com
