KinectTheWeb aims to redefine how we interact with our web browser and web pages by using the Microsoft Kinect sensor in lieu, or in addition to, your standard mouse and keyboard. Its goal is to conceive, prototype, and test different interactions with the device's many sensors to attempt and enhance how we browse the ever growing WWW.

Another related goal is to develop web pages that better facilitate and handle these type of interactions. Today's modern web pages are designed with the user in mind. Their ideal user sits behind a screen with a mouse and a keyboard. This project's additional and related goal is thus to try and rethink the web page in such a manner that is usable when other types of interaction(s) are employed.

This idea and project is experimental in nature; its definition may change and take many different forms over time. KinectTheWeb is an experiment to attempt and redefine, or build another layer on top of, how we interact with the web in 2013.

###Note After doing some research, it appears that this idea has already been considered and given a lot of ongoing thought with a project called DepthJS (https://github.com/doug/depthjs). Although this is the case, I still plan on developing and contributing to this (KinectTheWeb) project first. If anything good or usable comes about, possible contribution to that open source project may be the next step.

My reasoning behind this may or may not have some merit: I would like to develop a package that senses and determines the gestures based on the Kinect data. This information would then be sent over the network to a server which keeps track of the data and then serves up content based on the user's interactions. This could allow for multiple Kinects and multiple users working in a collaborative environment with their Kinects.

All in all, keep an eye on this project. It may shrink to become a more lightweight version of Kinect data handling (such as DepthJS) or may grow into something that requires a connection to a server. Who knows? I sure don't but come along for the ride anyway!

###Contributors

• Tyler Bell (@belltyler, http://initwithtyler.com/)

###Contact For any questions, feedback, comments or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact Tyler Bell at:

• tyler [at] madebybell [dot] com
  • and/or
• tbell [at] iastate [dot] edu

Thank you!

This Document Last updated: 05.24.2013
This Document Date created: 05.23.2013