Avatar Kinect available now, Kinect Sparkler this week

Avatar Kinect is now available on the Xbox Live Marketplace, for free. It's a chat program that uses animates your Avatar based on your facial movements.

Steve Watts

July 25, 2011 11:00 AM

If you have a Kinect and want a few free Achievements, you'll be pleased to know that Avatar Kinect is now available. You can find it under the Kinect Fun Labs heading in the Xbox Live Marketplace, and it's a free download. It comes complete with 50 points worth of Achievements, for activities like chatting with a buddy or posting "soliloquies." Never thought you'd hear that word outside of AP English, did you? The app is essentially fancy chat program, which uses your facial movements to animate your Avatar while you chat online with up to 7 friends in different 24 virtual settings -- like the Talk Show stage, Performance stage, and Sports Party stage. You can also capture and edit video of the meetings and upload it to Kinect Share, a dedicated video site that also boasts Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube functionality. Avatar Kinect is free for Gold members, but Microsoft is making it temporarily free for Free (previously Silver) members until September 8 as well. On September 8, Microsoft is kicking off an Avatar Kinect contest with an online comedy festival featuring actual stand-up comedians performing through Avatar Kinect. You can then vote for your favorite for a chance to win a 360 and Kinect bundle.

Kinect Sparkler

Microsoft also announced that Kinect Sparkler, another Fun Labs tech demo shown at E3, will be launching on Thursday, July 28, for $3 (240 MSP). It lets you paint light with your fingertips, which finally shows off the potential for finger-tracking using the device. It will also bring sharing features through the Kinect Share site.

Steve Watts

Editor-In-Chief

Filed Under

From The Chatty

Refresh Go To Thread

Shacknews

 reply
July 25, 2011 11:00 AM

Steve Watts posted a new article, Avatar Kinect available now, Kinect Sparkler this week.

Avatar Kinect is now available on the Xbox Live Marketplace, for free. It's a chat program that uses animates your Avatar based on your facial movements.
- Lycronis
  
   reply
  July 25, 2011 11:22 AM
  
  So, with Kinect Sparkler they want us to actually pay for a tech demo? Really? While I think the idea and tech is kind of cool I really don't think it should have to be paid for. Though $3.00 isn't that much, I just feel like this isn't something that they should charge you for. It's almost like saying you might as well start paying for the game demos too (not to mention the cost of a gold account already.)
  - mancide
    
     reply
    July 25, 2011 11:56 AM
    
    Yea, I don't see Sparkler getting the use that the other Labs gadgets did.
- Proven28
  
   reply
  July 25, 2011 11:35 AM
  
  So they take the most interesting looking tech demo.. the one that they know the most people would like to try, and they decide to only charge money for that one?
  - AndrewYoon
    
     reply
    July 25, 2011 11:48 AM
    
    Really? Kinect Sparkler is the most interesting tech demo to you?
- [deleted] 1114310971
  
   reply
  July 25, 2011 11:48 AM
  
  [deleted]