Earlier in the day we had reported that players could look forward to a 250GB Xbox 360 Kinect bundle as it was spied on the Australian 4GB package. Now its back in the news as the Microsoft patent for Kinect reveals that the device will do much more than just provide a exciting gaming experience. According to the patent, Kinect would apparently recognize American Sign Language and even read lips. It would even detect individual fingers and toes located on the player’s body.
Although there is a possibility that this could just be an idea and may not really be employed with the Microsoft Kinect. But if this feature is to be used them it the gaming experience would surely extend to hearing impaired players enabling them to enjoy their games.
The patent reveals, “Where the user is unable to speak, he may be prevented from joining in the voice chat. Even though he would be able to type input, this may be a laborious and slow process to someone fluent in ASL. Under the present system, he could make ASL gestures to convey his thoughts, which would then be transmitted to the other users for auditory display.”
It further revealed, “In this situation, for example, when the user kills another user’s character, that victorious, though speechless, user would be able to tell the other user that he had been PWNED.” With regard to reading lips, the patent disclosed, “facial motions to determine the user’s intended words and process them according to the context under which they were inputted to the system.”
This spectacular feature however hasn’t been displayed or demonstrated by the company as yet. Guess we would just have to wait for November to see whether the Microsoft Kinect would really incorporate this feature.