4. Audio & Speech

In the previous chapter, we covered the Kinect’s depth camera. In conjunction with its gesture-recognition capabilities, the depth camera tends to be the Kinect’s most touted feature. The Kinect’s audio and speech abilities, on the other hand, are typically overlooked. This is partly to do with marketability. From a video-gaming perspective, these features just do not help sell the Kinect nearly as much as the more immersive aspects do, such as gestures. The other important reason, though, is that the paradigm for audio input is somewhat misunderstood. We have all witnessed the “Xbox. . .” commands used to manipulate our video game consoles, but let us be completely honest: it is often easier to rely on the controller. To best realize the potential of the Kinect’s audio capabilities, we have to be sincere with ourselves. Audio is not a replacement for hand input, whether that be with a mouse, an Xbox One controller, or a touchpad. It only takes a discreet 2mm translation of our thumb to confirm a selection using a gamepad. We have to clear our voice and awkwardly talk to our device and wait for some latency in the voice-recognition technology to do the same with a microphone.