Xbox one fitness - how/does it work?

The kinect on the one has infrared and visible spectrum video sensors. It apparantly sees minute changes in the skin color and uses those minute changes to detect the hearbeat. I would imagine it is very accurate Apparantly the technology was developed at MIT.
It’s called Eulerian Video Modification and from the MIT link (here) comes this abstract:

Our goal is to reveal temporal variations in videos that are difficult or impossible to see with the naked eye and display them in an indicative manner. Our method, which we call Eulerian Video Magnification, takes a standard video sequence as input, and applies spatial decomposition, followed by temporal filtering to the frames. The resulting signal is then amplified to reveal hidden information. Using our method, we are able to visualize the flow of blood as it fills the face and also to amplify and reveal small motions. Our technique can run in real time to show phenomena occurring at temporal frequencies selected by the user.

Basically, the Xbox One uses technology developed at MIT Media Labs that measures the light from your face (using the camera) and decomposes it into the red, green and blue signals (RGB). Typically, one or more of these signals will show a periodicity that is related to your heart rate. For example, your face may become more or less red depending on the phase of the heart beat. This periodic rhythm can be quantitated by calculating the power spectrum of the signal and identifying the frequency with the highest peak (power) in a certain frequency range appropriate for your heart rate (45 - 240 beats per minute).


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http://gizmodo.com/the-xbox-ones-secret-killer-feature-getting-you-in-sh-509243228

Mike

Thats interesting. My husband's just got the Xbox one and is going to use the fitness thingy.

I couldn't care less when my husband got the Xbox one. Then he told me about the fitness section!

Lol. My husband told me about the fitness thing ages ago, when he was deciding whether to get the Xbox one. I think he knew If he told me about it I wouldn't moan about him spending £450 on it!