As you might have seen in our second episode of On The Verge,
our own Joshua Topolsky recently toured Microsoft's Building 99,
where the company conducts a variety of wild research. Today
we're pleased to share a look at Kinect Fusion and Lightspace —
two technologies that bridge the physical and virtual worlds
with sensors and imaging. Kinect Fusion is a system that uses
the Kinect's sensors to create an interactive, real-time 3D
model of the environment — the demonstration shows virtual balls
bouncing around on the objects captured and rendered directly
from the real world. (It's not the first time we've seen the
Kinect used for 3D modeling, but it's nice to see an official
effort.) Microsoft's Kevin Schofield is quick to point out that
the $150 Kinect sensor can accomplish the same tasks as
industrial versions of the technology that cost about $50,000.
Lightspace works in the opposite direction: with a combination
of depth cameras and projectors, it can create linked
interactive screens on different surfac