Back at the end of January, I told you about Making Things See: 3D Vision With Kinect, Processing, Arduino, and MakerBot, a new book published by O'Reilly. My review copy arrived about a week ago, but I admittedly haven't found sufficient spare cycles to crack it open yet, far from give it a proper perusal and review. Until I do, I hope the information that follows will whet your appetite. If you pick up your own copy, let me (and your fellow readers) know what you think of it in the comments!
The author, Greg Borenstein, is a graduate student in New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (previously showcased in an early-January EVA news writeup). Thanks to Boing Boing's Mark Frauenfelder, who's also the editor-in-chief of MAKE Magazine (also published by O'Reilly), I'm able to pass along to you the above video interview with Borenstein. I admittedly found the "John Travolta pose" demo to be quite amusing!
And speaking of Make Magazine, the publication's online blog also recently published a brief interview of Borenstein done by O’Reilly Publicist Mary Rotman. I particularly resonated with the following bit:
How is the Kinect changing the future of making?
The Kinect makes it radically easier to detect the position and movement of people than ever before. This has had a huge impact on interactive design and art. Cool interaction techniques that used to be so difficult that only experts could implement them are now available to even casual coders. These techniques include detecting people’s presence to trigger graphics or sound, tracking their movements and gestures to give them control of digital objects or hardware, and providing, and bringing spaces to life by making them interactive.
