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You may remember how, a little while back, I revealed that Kinect can perceive ghosts. It's fairly startling stuff for a home entertainment hub but, let's be honest, we've seen it all before. TV ghost hunting programmes exist for a reason. Spectral orbs? More like Disrespectul snore-bs, right?
That's why, today, I aim to really surprise you. I've captured seven of Kinect's best tricks, things you'd never expect from a camera designed mainly to be shouted at like a crap waiter. Enjoy.
All the NSA bugs in your house
A lot of fuss was made about Kinect 2.0 when it arrived - would it monitor your activities? Was it watching us while we're asleep? Could it be used by the Nanny State as a sinister Nanny Cam?
As it turned out, no.
In fact, ironically, Kinect is probably the only device in your house not being used to spy on you - and it can prove it. Simply switch to this mode, and all covert surveillance equipment in the camera's field of view will be highlighted in a terrifying red hue. Useful!
Your ideal self
I know, it's disappointing that Kinect can't read the subconscious mind - but at least Microsoft tried. This function is at least a first step towards understanding our inner selves.
Simply push a vision of a perfect version of yourself to the front of your mind. After two to three minutes, Kinect will be able to descramble your alpha waves and produce an on-screen version of this phantom you, pieced together by scraping images from Google.
Your liverbeat
Everyone knows Kinect can determine your heartbeat - there's an entire game coming out about it for god's sake. But this function proves just how powerful this piece of kit is.
Did you know your liver also has a beat? Yes - think of the slow pulse of your toxin-purifying sac as a sort of internal chew. As the saying goes, it literally eats poison for breakfast! And, by measuring the clarity of your sweat, Kinect can accurately estimate how fast it's beating, and automatically call an ambulance if you're over the 2.3 LBp/m death-threshold.
Invisible fire
A growing problem in urban areas, invisible fire is both unseeable, and cold. It doesn't actually burn anything, and it doesn't pose a threat to human or animal life, but it spreads like, well, wildfire (but invisible).
It is, however, what makes coffee get cold quicker than you like, so it's always worth knowing whether your room is on fire (you can't do anything about it, but it does mean you can just class that room as a write-off, coffee-wise).
The name you would have had, had you been born in a Parallel Earth
It's well-accepted that there are an infinite number of ourselves roaming about an infinite number of Earths. But, until now, we didn't know their names.
You see, the Internet can actually leap between universes (or "Jumpbyvanhalen", to use the scientific term) for moments at a time, meaning Kinect's visual sign-in process can be used to pick up a different version of your name. Of course, you won't be able to find out all of your names - most Earths have banned the Internet because of what it does to people.
A carousel of your regrets
By parsing data from social media and burrowing into your frontal lobe, this Kinect function will make you feel bad in the most pleasingly-presented way it can.
Combining the fetching Metro tile UI introduced with Windows 8, animated in swirls around your head, Kinect will present you with moments of your past you'd usually try to forget, but in such dashedly attractive fashion you'll have no choice but to watch as the worst parts of your life swim by.
