1. Flutter

Flutter is a company that I interviewed with back in September. They use computer vision algorithms to allow users to control their music programs via gestures recognized by webcams, thus when iTunes is minimized to the tray you don’t need to open it up to pause or go to the next song. And it’s free!

2. DepthJS

With many of the same goals in mind as Flutter, DepthJS is a software application which uses the Kinect to allow users to navigate web browsers with gestures. This project raises the question – just because we can use gestures to control something, does that mean we should? It seems to me that the point-and-click interface is far superior to the DepthJS interface in terms of convenience and usability. Gestures will only succeed when they demonstrate that they are better than the current status quo, and to me all I see here is a swipey touch-screen like mentality that doesn’t utilize the depth of the Kinect sensor.

3. Kinect Lightsaber

I’m all about this project. Track a stick, overlay it with a lightsaber. I could see myself doing something like this to create an augmented reality game or something like that. Maybe fruit ninja except you have to actually slash with a sword to get the fruit. EDIT: Kinect fruit ninja definitely already exists. Dang.