From what I've read and heard from many places, Xbox One's Kinect can measure your heart rate by detecting minute changes in the coloration of your face, either pigmentation or how flush you become.

Have you ever heard the term "make a black man blush"?

As a person with black parents who are interested in what the Kinect has to offer in terms of fitness software, can I expect Kinect to do the impossible, and tell if their skin is flush from a hard workout?

Just how well does this sensor work?

Have any people of color tested it at the event?

N'gai, I need to know:

CAN IT DO THE IMPOSSIBLE?!

They did discuss on the bombcast this very issue. I think they took this into account this time.

I heard the Kinect can see you in the dark too, so... probably?

Robots, man. Micropigmentations and shit, I don't know.

Nanomachines, son!

Sounded like bullshit to me.

The first Kinect couldn't really manage the possible so I'm going to vote "no."

Infrared cameras... you know, the ones that display images ranging from blue to red (blue = cool, red = hot).

I doubt it can accurately detect your heart rate, through optics. Infrared can read your oxygen saturation but that's about it. If Kinect is so advanced it can monitor minuscule changes in the skin, like the neck region maybe, it might give an estimation of the heart rate.

"Kinect pulse tracking not available for blacks or the undead."

Body temperature on the skin does not immediately relate to heart rate, it is more impacted by the environment. I may be hot and sweaty in a warm room, not because I am exerting myself.

Maybe if it measures the ambient temperature of the room compared to my own temperature, but can it do that? Measure air temperature in comparison to the temperature of a surface?

Body temperature on the skin does not immediately relate to heart rate, it is more impacted by the environment. I may be hot and sweaty in a warm room, not because I am exerting myself.

Maybe if it measures the ambient temperature of the room compared to my own temperature, but can it do that? Measure air temperature in comparison to the temperature of a surface?

It would have to measure the change in temperature in any case, so it would be unaffected by ambient temperature. The question is if the IR sensor is sensitive enough to pick up these changes and whether it has a high enough SNR to see the changes above the noise floor. I'm thinking the prediction would be rather inaccurate at the best of times.

So it's basically a checkbox "feature" of things the Kinect "could" do, a la scanning my skateboard.

I went out and bought a skateboard for that, dammit.

Actually, your pulse rate can be measured in a number of ways. The "arterial force exerted" is blood pressure and can be measured simply by squeezing an artery, and counting the peaks in pressure. Optically, pulse rate is measured by the velocity in a blood vessel, the same can be done using Ultrasound via the doppler effect. It can also be measured by changes in heat produced which is what infrared sensors would detect.

I wonder if it can distinguish people from backgrounds better as well. I have a very pale ginger friend that blends into the walls according to kinect.

@scroll: As we all know Gingers aren't human.

Yeah, unless Microsoft have put some serious hardware into it and have made some very good signal processing software on top of that, I would not expect much.

I meant that if devices or humans read heartrates, they need to feel the pulsatile force exerted. Arterial blood velocity isn't heart rate, you lose velocity through (fluid and solid) friction but I understand your point, you can derive it from it...physics. I doubt the Kinect 2.0 will have ultrasound though. I also doubt the tech can read changes in heat so accurately, they can derive your heart rates from it. I'm sure it's going to need a wristband or something.

Well, no, heart rate is simply the number of times your heart beats per unit time. The pulsatile force is another way to derive heart rate like all the other ones I mentioned. Also, friction is friction, there's no distinction between fluid and solid friction.

Finally, the blood velocity slows in distal vessels primarily due to the increase in cross-sectional area as the blood vessels decrease in size but increase in number (Q = constant = XSA*V, if XSA increases, V must decrease), not due to friction. Friction is a factor in the resistance of the vessel which will cause blood to flow to an adjacent, parallel vessel with less resistance. This is how your body directs blood to organs which need more blood flow than others.

If you want a pure measurement of heart rate you would measure the depolarization of the sinoatrial node using electrical leads.

Ultrasound devices have to be pressed against the skin and operated by an experienced technician in order to pick up arterial flow, so you're right, the Kinect would not have this feature.

I would love if this new Kinect works as advertised, I want it to be so good that developers need to come up with new ways to use it because it's limitless capability out-ranges their imagination.

That having been said, the disparity between the original Kinect's supposed and actual capabilities was so vast that I refuse to even consider it a working peripheral until it's in peoples homes doing exactly what they're advertising it can. I'm sure Microsoft has sorted out the issues and I bet the new technology is wildly superior but I'm pretty jaded on the whole idea at this point. As Ryan so eloquently put it:

"Hell, I'll be happy if it can even find me!"

im not sure how Kinect is doing it, but here is an interesting video from MIT.

What about goth girls?

Blood can flow laminar or turbulent, correct? Fluid friction (for lack of a better term) is just the friction of seperate layers of blood flowing is exerting on each other and there is the artery/cappillary wall that causes friction. I don't understand what you're trying to correct? My point was that the MIT video technology would not be implemented in Kinect, not to debate the fysiology of bloodflow.

@brodehouse: You just made a fool out of me at my desk, thanks.

@trafalgarlaw: @rollingzeppelin:

SCIENCE.

Kinect is too busy recording them getting nekkid and streaming it on the internet.

@trafalgarlaw: I'm trying to correct your misconceptions about what heart rate is, you seem to think it is blood pressure, which it isn't. The better term there is viscosity which is influenced by, but not friction itself. I think it's kind of a requirement to understand what is being measured before discussing why or why not it could be measured. I don't know why you brought up laminar vs turbulent flow, but yes blood flow can be laminar or turbulent.

I'm not really debating you, just trying to give you a correct knowledge base. It's spelt physiology, by the way.

@fourwude: I would say Sub human at the very least.

Alright I worded that wrong, I meant the common heart rate measurement is still by measuring pulsatile force...right? If I want to measure my own, I either put my finger on my wrist or on a carotid...I measure the interval between pulsatile forces. Allright, we cool?

Yeah that's one way, but not the only way. But that's pretty much what I said in my first reply to you.

@psylah: Now that you mention it we need a Kinect in every home.

@brodehouse: What about homes that lack goth girls?

You can watch their dogs hump.

@extomar: Hey man, let's be more inclusive. A Kinect Voyeur Device in every house gives every person access to whatever turns their crank.

It's going to look at my boner, isn't it?

Skynet errr Kinect is mapping out your vital organs for the upcoming war. All hail our new overlords The Machines.

Sorry, it's just a 1080p camera. It has no magnifying ability.

If the camera is sensitive down into the near-IR range, then yeah, shouldn't be a problem. think of it as a more expanded meaning to the word "color". things that are opaque in the visible spectrum can be translucent/transparent in the near-IR spectrum, things that tend to not reflect light in the visible spectrum can be pretty decent reflectors in the IR. check out the spectral reflectivity of metals for instance: gold, silver, copper. If you are able to see into the IR range it's easier to distinguish things that would be difficult if you were limited to visible spectrum only.