document_title: The Canterbury Tales

question_text: who tells the first story in the canterbury tales

text: The Canterbury Tales

text: Text[edit]

text: The question of whether The Canterbury Tales is a finished work has not been answered to date. There are 84 manuscripts and four incunable editions of the work, dating from the late medieval and early Renaissance periods, more than for any other vernacular literary text with the exception of The Prick of Conscience. This is taken as evidence of the Tales' popularity during the century after Chaucer's death.[7] Fifty-five of these manuscripts are thought to have been originally complete, while 28 are so fragmentary that it is difficult to ascertain whether they were copied individually or as part of a set.[8] The Tales vary in both minor and major ways from manuscript to manuscript; many of the minor variations are due to copyists' errors, while it is suggested that in other cases Chaucer both added to his work and revised it as it was being copied and possibly as it was being distributed. Determining the text of the work is complicated by the question of the narrator's voice which Chaucer made part of his literary structure.

text: Even the oldest surviving manuscripts of the Tales are not Chaucer's originals. The very oldest is probably MS Peniarth 392 D (called "Hengwrt"), written by a scribe shortly after Chaucer's death. The most beautiful, on the other hand, is the Ellesmere Manuscript, a manuscript whose order and many editors have followed even down to the present day.[9][10] The first version of The Canterbury Tales to be published in print was William Caxton's 1476 edition. Only 10 copies of this edition are known to exist, including one held by the British Library and one held by the Folger Shakespeare Library.

text: In 2004, Linne Mooney claimed that she was able to identify the scrivener who worked for Chaucer as an Adam Pinkhurst. Mooney, then a professor at the University of Maine and a visiting fellow at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, said she could match Pinkhurst's signature, on an oath he signed, to his handwriting on a copy of The Canterbury Tales that might have been transcribed from Chaucer's working copy.[11]

text: Order[edit]

text: In the absence of consensus as to whether or not a complete version of the Tales exists, there is also no general agreement regarding the order in which Chaucer intended the stories to be placed.[12][13]

text: Textual and manuscript clues have been adduced to support the two most popular modern methods of ordering the tales. Some scholarly editions divide the Tales into ten "Fragments". The tales that make up a Fragment are closely related and contain internal indications of their order of presentation, usually with one character speaking to and then stepping aside for another character. However, between Fragments, the connection is less obvious. Consequently, there are several possible orders; the one most frequently seen in modern editions follows the numbering of the Fragments (ultimately based on the Ellesmere order).[12] Victorians frequently used the nine "Groups", which was the order used by Walter William Skeat whose edition Chaucer: Complete Works was used by Oxford University Press for most of the twentieth century, but this order is now seldom followed.[12]

text:
Fragment
Group
Tales

01Fragment I
A

General Prologue,
The Knight's Tale,
The Miller's Tale,
The Reeve's Tale,
The Cook's Tale

02Fragment II
B1

The Man of Law's Tale

03Fragment III
D

The Wife of Bath's Tale,
The Friar's Tale,
The Summoner's Tale

04Fragment IV
E

The Clerk's Tale,
The Merchant's Tale

05Fragment V
F

The Squire's Tale,
The Franklin's Tale

06Fragment VI
C

The Physician's Tale,
The Pardoner's Tale

07Fragment VII
B2

The Shipman's Tale,
The Prioress's Tale,
Sir Thopas' Tale,
The Tale of Melibee,
The Monk's Tale,
The Nun's Priest's Tale

08Fragment VIII
G

The Second Nun's Tale,
The Canon's Yeoman's Tale

09Fragment IX
H

The Manciple's Tale

10Fragment X
I

The Parson's Tale

text: An alternative ordering (seen in an early manuscript containing The Canterbury Tales, the early-fifteenth century Harley MS. 7334) places Fragment VIII before VI. Fragments I and II almost always follow each other, just as VI and VII, IX and X do in the oldest manuscripts. Fragments IV and V, by contrast, vary in location from manuscript to manuscript.

text: Language[edit]

text:
The Merchant's Prologue

Recording in reconstructed Middle English pronunciation

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text: Chaucer wrote in late Middle English, which has clear differences from Modern English. From philological research, we know certain facts about the pronunciation of English during the time of Chaucer. Chaucer pronounced -e at the end of words, so that care was [ˈkaːrə], not /ˈkɛər/ as in Modern English. Other silent letters were also pronounced, so that the word knight was [kniçt], with both the k and the gh pronounced, not /ˈnaɪt/. In some cases, vowel letters in Middle English were pronounced very differently from Modern English, because the Great Vowel Shift had not yet happened. For instance, the long e in wepyng "weeping" was pronounced as [eː], as in modern German or Italian, not as /iː/. Below is an IPA transcription of the opening lines of The Merchant's Prologue:

text:
'Wepyng and waylyng, care and oother sorwe
I knowe ynogh, on even and a-morwe,'
Quod the Marchant, 'and so doon oother mo
That wedded been.'[14]

ˈweːpɪŋɡ and ˈwailɪŋɡ ‖ ˈkaːr‿and ˈoːðər ˈsɔrwə ‖
iː ˈknɔu əˈnoːx ‖ ɔn ˈɛːvən and aˈmɔrwə ‖
ˈkwɔd ðə ˈmartʃant ‖ and ˈsɔː ˈdoːn ˈoːðər ˈmɔː ‖
ðat ˈwɛddəd ˈbeːn ‖[15]

'Weeping and wailing, care and other sorrow
I know enough, in the evening and in the morning,'
said the Merchant, 'and so does many another
who has been married.'

text: Although no manuscript exists in Chaucer's own hand, two were copied around the time of his death by Adam Pinkhurst, a scribe with whom he seems to have worked closely before, giving a high degree of confidence that Chaucer himself wrote the Tales.[16] Because the final -e sound was lost soon after Chaucer's time, scribes did not accurately copy it, and this gave scholars the impression that Chaucer himself was inconsistent in using it.[17] It has now been established, however, that -e was an important part of Chaucer's grammar, and helped to distinguish singular adjectives from plural and subjunctive verbs from indicative.[18]

text: Sources[edit]

text: No other work prior to Chaucer's is known to have set a collection of tales within the framework of pilgrims on a pilgrimage. It is obvious, however, that Chaucer borrowed portions, sometimes very large portions, of his stories from earlier stories, and that his work was influenced by the general state of the literary world in which he lived. Storytelling was the main entertainment in England at the time, and storytelling contests had been around for hundreds of years. In 14th-century England the English Pui was a group with an appointed leader who would judge the songs of the group. The winner received a crown and, as with the winner of The Canterbury Tales, a free dinner. It was common for pilgrims on a pilgrimage to have a chosen "master of ceremonies" to guide them and organise the journey.[19] Harold Bloom suggests that the structure is mostly original, but inspired by the "pilgrim" figures of Dante and Virgil in The Divine Comedy.[20] New research suggests that the General Prologue, in which the innkeeper and host Harry Bailey introduces each pilgrim, is a pastiche of the historical Harry Bailey's surviving 1381 poll-tax account of Southwark's inhabitants.[21]

text: The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio contains more parallels to The Canterbury Tales than any other work. Like the Tales, it features a number of narrators who tell stories along a journey they have undertaken (to flee from the Black Death). It ends with an apology by Boccaccio, much like Chaucer's Retraction to the Tales. A quarter of the tales in The Canterbury Tales parallel a tale in the Decameron, although most of them have closer parallels in other stories. Some scholars thus find it unlikely that Chaucer had a copy of the work on hand, surmising instead that he must have merely read the Decameron at some point,[22] while a new study claims he had a copy of the Decameron and used it extensively as he began work on his own collection.[23] Each of the tales has its own set of sources that have been suggested by scholars, but a few sources are used frequently over several tales. They include poetry by Ovid, the Bible in one of the many vulgate versions in which it was available at the time (the exact one is difficult to determine), and the works of Petrarch and Dante. Chaucer was the first author to utilise the work of these last two, both Italians. Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy appears in several tales, as the works of John Gower do. Gower was a known friend to Chaucer. A full list is impossible to outline in little space, but Chaucer also, lastly, seems to have borrowed from numerous religious encyclopaedias and liturgical writings, such as John Bromyard's Summa praedicantium, a preacher's handbook, and Jerome's Adversus Jovinianum.[24] Many scholars say there is a good possibility Chaucer met Petrarch or Boccaccio.[25][26][27][incomplete short citation][28][incomplete short citation][29]

text: Genre and structure[edit]

text: The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories built around a frame narrative or frame tale, a common and already long established genre of its period. Chaucer's Tales differs from most other story "collections" in this genre chiefly in its intense variation. Most story collections focused on a theme, usually a religious one. Even in the Decameron, storytellers are encouraged to stick to the theme decided on for the day. The idea of a pilgrimage to get such a diverse collection of people together for literary purposes was also unprecedented, though "the association of pilgrims and storytelling was a familiar one".[30] Introducing a competition among the tales encourages the reader to compare the tales in all their variety, and allows Chaucer to showcase the breadth of his skill in different genres and literary forms.[31]

text: While the structure of the Tales is largely linear, with one story following another, it is also much more than that. In the General Prologue, Chaucer describes not the tales to be told, but the people who will tell them, making it clear that structure will depend on the characters rather than a general theme or moral. This idea is reinforced when the Miller interrupts to tell his tale after the Knight has finished his. Having the Knight go first gives one the idea that all will tell their stories by class, with the Monk following the Knight. However, the Miller's interruption makes it clear that this structure will be abandoned in favour of a free and open exchange of stories among all classes present. General themes and points of view arise as the characters tell their tales, which are responded to by other characters in their own tales, sometimes after a long lapse in which the theme has not been addressed.[32]

text: Lastly, Chaucer does not pay much attention to the progress of the trip, to the time passing as the pilgrims travel, or to specific locations along the way to Canterbury. His writing of the story seems focused primarily on the stories being told, and not on the pilgrimage itself.[33]

text: Style[edit]

text: The variety of Chaucer's tales shows the breadth of his skill and his familiarity with many literary forms, linguistic styles, and rhetorical devices. Medieval schools of rhetoric at the time encouraged such diversity, dividing literature (as Virgil suggests) into high, middle, and low styles as measured by the density of rhetorical forms and vocabulary. Another popular method of division came from St. Augustine, who focused more on audience response and less on subject matter (a Virgilian concern). Augustine divided literature into "majestic persuades", "temperate pleases", and "subdued teaches". Writers were encouraged to write in a way that kept in mind the speaker, subject, audience, purpose, manner, and occasion. Chaucer moves freely between all of these styles, showing favouritism to none.[34] He not only considers the readers of his work as an audience, but the other pilgrims within the story as well, creating a multi-layered rhetorical puzzle of ambiguities. Thus Chaucer's work far surpasses the ability of any single medieval theory to uncover.[35]

text: With this, Chaucer avoids targeting any specific audience or social class of readers, focusing instead on the characters of the story and writing their tales with a skill proportional to their social status and learning. However, even the lowest characters, such as the Miller, show surprising rhetorical ability, although their subject matter is more lowbrow. Vocabulary also plays an important part, as those of the higher classes refer to a woman as a "lady", while the lower classes use the word "wenche", with no exceptions. At times the same word will mean entirely different things between classes. The word "pitee", for example, is a noble concept to the upper classes, while in the Merchant's Tale it refers to sexual intercourse. Again, however, tales such as the Nun's Priest's Tale show surprising skill with words among the lower classes of the group, while the Knight's Tale is at times extremely simple.[36]

text: Chaucer uses the same meter throughout almost all of his tales, with the exception of Sir Thopas and his prose tales. It is a decasyllable line, probably borrowed from French and Italian forms, with riding rhyme and, occasionally, a caesura in the middle of a line. His meter would later develop into the heroic meter of the 15th and 16th centuries and is an ancestor of iambic pentameter. He avoids allowing couplets to become too prominent in the poem, and four of the tales (the Man of Law's, Clerk's, Prioress', and Second Nun's) use rhyme royal.[37]

text: Historical context and themes[edit]

text: The Canterbury Tales was written during a turbulent time in English history. The Catholic Church was in the midst of the Western Schism and, though it was still the only Christian authority in Europe, was the subject of heavy controversy. Lollardy, an early English religious movement led by John Wycliffe, is mentioned in the Tales, which also mention a specific incident involving pardoners (sellers of indulgences, which were believed to relieve the temporal punishment due for sins that were already forgiven in the Sacrament of Confession) who nefariously claimed to be collecting for St. Mary Rouncesval hospital in England. The Canterbury Tales is among the first English literary works to mention paper, a relatively new invention that allowed dissemination of the written word never before seen in England. Political clashes, such as the 1381 Peasants' Revolt and clashes ending in the deposing of King Richard II, further reveal the complex turmoil surrounding Chaucer in the time of the Tales' writing. Many of his close friends were executed and he himself moved to Kent to get away from events in London.[38]

text: While some readers look to interpret the characters of The Canterbury Tales as historical figures, other readers choose to interpret its significance in less literal terms. After analysis of Chaucer's diction and historical context, his work appears to develop a critique of society during his lifetime. Within a number of his descriptions, his comments can appear complimentary in nature, but through clever language, the statements are ultimately critical of the pilgrim's actions. It is unclear whether Chaucer would intend for the reader to link his characters with actual persons. Instead, it appears that Chaucer creates fictional characters to be general representations of people in such fields of work. With an understanding of medieval society, one can detect subtle satire at work.[39]

text: Religion[edit]

text: The Tales reflect diverse views of the Church in Chaucer's England. After the Black Death, many Europeans began to question the authority of the established Church. Some turned to lollardy, while others chose less extreme paths, starting new monastic orders or smaller movements exposing church corruption in the behaviour of the clergy, false church relics or abuse of indulgences.[40] Several characters in the Tales are religious figures, and the very setting of the pilgrimage to Canterbury is religious (although the prologue comments ironically on its merely seasonal attractions), making religion a significant theme of the work.[41]

text: Two characters, the Pardoner and the Summoner, whose roles apply the Church's secular power, are both portrayed as deeply corrupt, greedy, and abusive. Pardoners in Chaucer's day were those people from whom one bought Church "indulgences" for forgiveness of sins, who were guilty of abusing their office for their own gain. Chaucer's Pardoner openly admits the corruption of his practice while hawking his wares.[42] Summoners were Church officers who brought sinners to the Church court for possible excommunication and other penalties. Corrupt summoners would write false citations and frighten people into bribing them to protect their interests. Chaucer's Summoner is portrayed as guilty of the very kinds of sins for which he is threatening to bring others to court, and is hinted as having a corrupt relationship with the Pardoner.[43] In The Friar's Tale, one of the characters is a summoner who is shown to be working on the side of the devil, not God.[44]

text: Churchmen of various kinds are represented by the Monk, the Prioress, the Nun's Priest, and the Second Nun. Monastic orders, which originated from a desire to follow an ascetic lifestyle separated from the world, had by Chaucer's time become increasingly entangled in worldly matters. Monasteries frequently controlled huge tracts of land on which they made significant sums of money, while peasants worked in their employ.[45] The Second Nun is an example of what a Nun was expected to be: her tale is about a woman whose chaste example brings people into the church. The Monk and the Prioress, on the other hand, while not as corrupt as the Summoner or Pardoner, fall far short of the ideal for their orders. Both are expensively dressed, show signs of lives of luxury and flirtatiousness and show a lack of spiritual depth.[46] The Prioress's Tale is an account of Jews murdering a deeply pious and innocent Christian boy, a blood libel against Jews that became a part of English literary tradition.[47] The story did not originate in the works of Chaucer and was well known in the 14th century.[48]

text: Pilgrimage was a very prominent feature of medieval society. The ultimate pilgrimage destination was Jerusalem,[49] but within England Canterbury was a popular destination. Pilgrims would journey to cathedrals that preserved relics of saints, believing that such relics held miraculous powers. Saint Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, had been murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights of Henry II during a disagreement between Church and Crown. Miracle stories connected to his remains sprang up soon after his death, and the cathedral became a popular pilgrimage destination.[50] The pilgrimage in the work ties all of the stories together and may be considered a representation of Christians' striving for heaven, despite weaknesses, disagreement, and diversity of opinion.[51]

text: Social class and convention[edit]

text: The upper class or nobility, represented chiefly by the Knight and his Squire, was in Chaucer's time steeped in a culture of chivalry and courtliness. Nobles were expected to be powerful warriors who could be ruthless on the battlefield yet mannerly in the King's Court and Christian in their actions.[52] Knights were expected to form a strong social bond with the men who fought alongside them, but an even stronger bond with a woman whom they idealised to strengthen their fighting ability.[53] Though the aim of chivalry was to noble action, its conflicting values often degenerated into violence. Church leaders frequently tried to place restrictions on jousts and tournaments, which at times ended in the death of the loser. The Knight's Tale shows how the brotherly love of two fellow knights turns into a deadly feud at the sight of a woman whom both idealise. To win her, both are willing to fight to the death. Chivalry was in Chaucer's day on the decline, and it is possible that The Knight's Tale was intended to show its flaws, although this is disputed.[54] Chaucer himself had fought in the Hundred Years' War under Edward III, who heavily emphasised chivalry during his reign.[55] Two tales, Sir Topas and The Tale of Melibee are told by Chaucer himself, who is travelling with the pilgrims in his own story. Both tales seem to focus on the ill-effects of chivalry—the first making fun of chivalric rules and the second warning against violence.[56]

text: The Tales constantly reflect the conflict between classes. For example, the division of the three estates: the characters are all divided into three distinct classes, the classes being "those who pray" (the clergy), "those who fight" (the nobility), and "those who work" (the commoners and peasantry).[57] Most of the tales are interlinked by common themes, and some "quit" (reply to or retaliate against) other tales. Convention is followed when the Knight begins the game with a tale, as he represents the highest social class in the group. But when he is followed by the Miller, who represents a lower class, it sets the stage for the Tales to reflect both a respect for and a disregard for upper class rules. Helen Cooper, as well as Mikhail Bakhtin and Derek Brewer, call this opposition "the ordered and the grotesque, Lent and Carnival, officially approved culture and its riotous, and high-spirited underside."[58] Several works of the time contained the same opposition.[58]

text: Relativism versus realism[edit]

text: Chaucer's characters each express different—sometimes vastly different—views of reality, creating an atmosphere of testing, empathy, and relativism.[34] As Helen Cooper says, "Different genres give different readings of the world: the fabliau scarcely notices the operations of God, the saint's life focuses on those at the expense of physical reality, tracts and sermons insist on prudential or orthodox morality, romances privilege human emotion." The sheer number of varying persons and stories renders the Tales as a set unable to arrive at any definite truth or reality.[59]

text: Liminality[edit]

text: The concept of liminality figures prominently within The Canterbury Tales.[34] A liminal space, which can be both geographical as well as metaphorical or spiritual, is the transitional or transformational space between a “real” (secure, known, limited) world and an unknown or imaginary space of both risk and possibility.[60] The notion of a pilgrimage is itself a liminal experience, because it centers on travel between destinations and because pilgrims undertake it hoping to become more holy in the process. Thus, the structure of The Canterbury Tales itself is liminal; it not only covers the distance between London and Canterbury, but the majority of the tales refer to places entirely outside the geography of the pilgrimage. Jean Jost summarises the function of liminality in The Canterbury Tales,

text: "Both appropriately and ironically in this raucous and subversive liminal space, a ragtag assembly gather together and tell their equally unconventional tales. In this unruly place, the rules of tale telling are established, themselves to be both disordered and broken; here the tales of game and earnest, solas and sentence, will be set and interrupted. Here the sacred and profane adventure begins, but does not end. Here, the condition of peril is as prominent as that of protection. The act of pilgrimaging itself consists of moving from one urban space, through liminal rural space, to the next urban space with an ever fluctuating series of events and narratives punctuating those spaces. The goal of pilgrimage may well be a religious or spiritual space at its conclusion, and reflect a psychological progression of the spirit, in yet another kind of emotional space."[61]

text: Liminality is also evident in the individual tales. An obvious instance of this is the Friar’s Tale in which the yeoman devil is a liminal figure because of his transitory nature and function; it is his purpose to issue souls from their current existence to hell, an entirely different one.[62] The Franklin’s Tale is a Breton Lai tale, which takes the tale into a liminal space by invoking not only the interaction of the supernatural and the mortal, but also the relation between the present and the imagined past.[63]

text: Influence on literature[edit]

text: It is sometimes argued that the greatest contribution that this work made to English literature was in popularising the literary use of the vernacular English, rather than French or Latin. English had, however, been used as a literary language for centuries before Chaucer's life, and several of Chaucer's contemporaries—John Gower, William Langland, and the Pearl Poet—also wrote major literary works in English. It is unclear to what extent Chaucer was responsible for starting a trend rather than simply being part of it.[citation needed] It is interesting to note that, although Chaucer had a powerful influence in poetic and artistic terms, which can be seen in the great number of forgeries and mistaken attributions (such as The Floure and the Leafe, which was translated by John Dryden), modern English spelling and orthography owe much more to the innovations made by the Court of Chancery in the decades during and after his lifetime.[citation needed]

text: Reception[edit]

text: While Chaucer clearly states the addressees of many of his poems (the Book of the Duchess is believed to have been written for John of Gaunt on the occasion of his wife's death in 1368), the intended audience of The Canterbury Tales is more difficult to determine. Chaucer was a courtier, leading some to believe that he was mainly a court poet who wrote exclusively for the nobility. He is referred to as a noble translator and poet by Eustache Deschamps and by his contemporary John Gower. It has been suggested that the poem was intended to be read aloud, which is probable as this was a common activity at the time. However, it also seems to have been intended for private reading as well, since Chaucer frequently refers to himself as the writer, rather than the speaker, of the work. Determining the intended audience directly from the text is even more difficult, since the audience is part of the story. This makes it difficult to tell when Chaucer is writing to the fictional pilgrim audience or the actual reader.[64]

text: Chaucer's works may have been distributed in some form during his lifetime in part or in whole. Scholars speculate that manuscripts were circulated among his friends, but likely remained unknown to most people until after his death. However, the speed with which copyists strove to write complete versions of his tale in manuscript form shows that Chaucer was a famous and respected poet in his own day. The Hengwrt and Ellesmere manuscripts are examples of the care taken to distribute the work. More manuscript copies of the poem exist than for any other poem of its day except The Prick of Conscience, causing some scholars to give it the medieval equivalent of bestseller status. Even the most elegant of the illustrated manuscripts, however, is not nearly as highly decorated as the work of authors of more respectable works such as John Lydgate's religious and historical literature.[65]

text: 15th century[edit]

text: John Lydgate and Thomas Occleve were among the first critics of Chaucer's Tales, praising the poet as the greatest English poet of all time and the first to show what the language was truly capable of poetically. This sentiment was universally agreed upon by later critics into the mid-15th century. Glosses included in The Canterbury Tales manuscripts of the time praised him highly for his skill with "sentence" and rhetoric, the two pillars by which medieval critics judged poetry. The most respected of the tales was at this time the Knight's, as it was full of both.[66]

text: Literary additions and supplements[edit]

text: The incompleteness of the Tales led several medieval authors to write additions and supplements to the tales to make them more complete. Some of the oldest existing manuscripts of the tales include new or modified tales, showing that even early on, such additions were being created. These emendations included various expansions of the Cook's Tale, which Chaucer never finished, The Plowman's Tale, The Tale of Gamelyn, the Siege of Thebes, and the Tale of Beryn.[67]

text: The Tale of Beryn, written by an anonymous author in the 15th century, is preceded by a lengthy prologue in which the pilgrims arrive at Canterbury and their activities there are described. While the rest of the pilgrims disperse throughout the town, the Pardoner seeks the affections of Kate the barmaid, but faces problems dealing with the man in her life and the innkeeper Harry Bailey. As the pilgrims turn back home, the Merchant restarts the storytelling with Tale of Beryn. In this tale, a young man named Beryn travels from Rome to Egypt to seek his fortune only to be cheated by other businessmen there. He is then aided by a local man in getting his revenge. The tale comes from the French tale Bérinus and exists in a single early manuscript of the tales, although it was printed along with the tales in a 1721 edition by John Urry.[68]

text: John Lydgate wrote The Siege of Thebes in about 1420. Like the Tale of Beryn, it is preceded by a prologue in which the pilgrims arrive in Canterbury. Lydgate places himself among the pilgrims as one of them and describes how he was a part of Chaucer's trip and heard the stories. He characterises himself as a monk and tells a long story about the history of Thebes before the events of the Knight's Tale. John Lydgate's tale was popular early on and exists in old manuscripts both on its own and as part of the Tales. It was first printed as early as 1561 by John Stow, and several editions for centuries after followed suit.[69]

text: There are actually two versions of The Plowman's Tale, both of which are influenced by the story Piers Plowman, a work written during Chaucer's lifetime. Chaucer describes a Plowman in the General Prologue of his tales, but never gives him his own tale. One tale, written by Thomas Occleve, describes the miracle of the Virgin and the Sleeveless Garment. Another tale features a pelican and a griffin debating church corruption, with the pelican taking a position of protest akin to John Wycliffe's ideas.[70]

text: The Tale of Gamelyn was included in an early manuscript version of the tales, Harley 7334, which is notorious for being one of the lower-quality early manuscripts in terms of editor error and alteration. It is now widely rejected by scholars as an authentic Chaucerian tale, although some scholars think he may have intended to rewrite the story as a tale for the Yeoman. Dates for its authorship vary from 1340 to 1370.[71]

text: Literary adaptations[edit]

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text: Many literary works (both fiction and non-fiction alike) have used a similar frame narrative to The Canterbury Tales as an homage. Science-fiction writer Dan Simmons wrote his Hugo Award winning novel Hyperion based on an extra-planetary group of pilgrims. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins used The Canterbury Tales as a structure for his 2004 non-fiction book about evolution titled The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution. His animal pilgrims are on their way to find the common ancestor, each telling a tale about evolution.

text: Henry Dudeney's book The Canterbury Puzzles contains a part reputedly lost from what modern readers know as Chaucer's tales.

text: Historical-mystery novelist P.C. Doherty wrote a series of novels based on The Canterbury Tales, making use of both the story frame and Chaucer's characters.

text: Canadian author Angie Abdou translates The Canterbury Tales to a cross section of people, all snow-sports enthusiasts but from different social backgrounds, converging on a remote back-country ski cabin in British Columbia in the 2011 novel The Canterbury Trail.

text: Adaptations and homages[edit]

text: The Two Noble Kinsmen, by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, a retelling of "The Knight's Tale", was first performed in 1613 or 1614 and published in 1634. In 1961, Erik Chisholm completed his opera, The Canterbury Tales. The opera is in three acts: The Wyf of Bath’s Tale, The Pardoner’s Tale and The Nun’s Priest’s Tale. Nevill Coghill's modern English version formed the basis of a musical version that was first staged in 1964.

text: A Canterbury Tale, a 1944 film jointly written and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is loosely based on the narrative frame of Chaucer's tales. The movie opens with a group of medieval pilgrims journeying through the Kentish countryside as a narrator speaks the opening lines of the General Prologue. The scene then makes a now-famous transition to the time of World War II. From that point on, the film follows a group of strangers, each with his or her own story and in need of some kind of redemption, who are making their way to Canterbury together. The film's main story takes place in an imaginary town in Kent and ends with the main characters arriving at Canterbury Cathedral, bells pealing and Chaucer's words again resounding. A Canterbury Tale is recognised as one of the Powell-Pressburger team's most poetic and artful films. It was produced as wartime propaganda, using Chaucer's poetry, referring to the famous pilgrimage, and offering photography of Kent to remind the public of what made Britain worth fighting for. In one scene a local historian lectures an audience of British soldiers about the pilgrims of Chaucer's time and the vibrant history of England.[72]

text: Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1972 film The Canterbury Tales features several of the tales, some of which keep close to the original tale and some of which are embellished. The Cook's Tale, for instance, which is incomplete in the original version, is expanded into a full story, and the Friar's Tale extends the scene in which the Summoner is dragged down to hell. The film includes these two tales as well as the Miller's Tale, the Summoner's Tale, the Wife of Bath's Tale, and the Merchant's Tale.[73]

text: On April 26, 1986, American radio personality Garrison Keillor opened "The News from Lake Wobegon" portion of the first live TV broadcast of his A Prairie Home Companion radio show with a reading of the original Middle English text of the General Prologue. He commented, "Although those words were written more than 600 years ago, they still describe spring."

text: Television adaptations include Alan Plater's 1975 re-telling of the stories in a series of plays for BBC2: Trinity Tales. In 2003, BBC again featured modern re-tellings of selected tales.[74]

text:
The Knight

The Squire

The Reeve

The Miller

The Cook

The Wife of Bath

The Franklin

The Shipman

The Manciple

The Merchant

The Clerk of Oxford

The Sergeant of Law

The Physician

The Parson

The Monk

The Prioress

The Second Nun

The Nun's Priest

The Friar

The Summoner

The Pardoner

The Canon Yeoman

Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Notes[edit]

text:
Jump up ^ Carlson, David. "The Chronology of Lydgate's Chaucer References". The Chaucer Review, Vol. 38, No. 3 (2004), pp. 246–254. Accessed 6 January 2014.
Jump up ^ The name "Tales of Caunterbury" appears within the surviving texts of Chaucer's work. Its modern name first appeared as Canterbury talys in John Lydgate's 1421-2 prologue to the Siege of Thebes.[1]
Jump up ^ Encyclopedia Brittanica
Jump up ^ Prestwich, Michael (2014). Medieval People: Vivid Lives in a Distant Landscape. London: Thames & Hudson. pp. 4. An Age of Plague 1300–1400. ISBN 9780500252031.
Jump up ^ "Geoffrey Chaucer (1342–1400) "The Canterbury Tales" (in middle english and modern english)". www.librarius.com. Retrieved 2015-09-25.
Jump up ^ Black, Joseph (2011). The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Canada: Broadview Press. pp. 229–331.
Jump up ^ Pearsall, 8.
Jump up ^ Cooper, 6—7
Jump up ^ Pearsall, 10, 17.
Jump up ^ Cooper, 8.
Jump up ^ Linne R. Mooney (2006), "Chaucer's Scribe," Speculum, 81 : 97–138.
^ Jump up to: a b c Cooper, 7
Jump up ^ Pearsall, 14–15.
Jump up ^ Text from The Riverside Chaucer, ed. by Larry D. Benson, 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 153.
Jump up ^ Based on the information in Norman Davies, "Language and Versification", in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. by Larry D. Benson, 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. xxv–xli.
Jump up ^ Linne R. Mooney, "Chaucer’s Scribe", Speculum, 81 (2006), 97–138.
Jump up ^ e.g. Ian Robinson, Chaucer's Prosody: A Study of the Middle English Verse Tradition (London: Cambridge University Press, 1971).
Jump up ^ Seminal studies included M. L. Samuels, "Chaucerian Final '-e'", Notes and Queries, 19 (1972), 445–48, and D. Burnley, "Inflection in Chaucer's Adjectives", Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 83 (1982), 169–77.
Jump up ^ Cooper, p. 10.
Jump up ^ Bloom, Harold (11 November 2009). "Road Trip". New York Times. Retrieved 9 September 2013.
Jump up ^ Sobecki, Sebastian (2017). "A Southwark Tale: Gower, the 1381 Poll Tax, and Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales". Speculum. 92 (3): 630–660. doi:10.1086/692620.
Jump up ^ Cooper, pp. 10–11.
Jump up ^ Biggs, Frederick M. Chaucer's Decameron and the Origin of the Canterbury Tales. D.S. Brewer,. Cambridge. ISBN 9781843844754. OCLC 971521732.
Jump up ^ Cooper, pp. 12–16.
Jump up ^ Brewer, p. 227. Although Chaucer undoubtedly studied the works of these celebrated writers, and particularly of Dante before this fortunate interview; yet it seems likely, that these excursions gave him a new relish for their compositions, and enlarged his knowledge of the Italian fables.
Jump up ^ Brewer, p. 277. ...where he became thoroughly inbued with the spirit and excellence of the great Italian poets and prose-writers: Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio; and is said to have had a personal contact interview with one of these, Petrarch.
Jump up ^ Hendrickson, pp. 183–192. Professor G. L. Hendrickson of the University of Chicago gives a detailed analysis as to Chaucer coming in contact with Petrarch.
Jump up ^ Rearden, p. 458. There can be no moral doubt but that Chaucer knew Petrarch personally. They were both in France many times, where they might have met. They were both courtiers. They both had an enthusiasm for scholarship. Whether they met then, or whether Chaucer, when on his visit to Genoa, specially visited the Italian, it does not appear. ...but the only reason that such a visit could not have occurred lies in the fact that Petrarch himself does not record it. Still, on the other hand, would he have mentioned the visit of a man who was the servant of a barbarous monarch, and whose only claim to notice, literary-wise, was his cultivation of an unknown and uncouth dialect that was half bastard French?
Jump up ^ Skeat (1874), p. xxx. And we know that Petrarch, on his own shewing, was so pleased with the story of Griselda that he learnt it by heart as well as he could, for the express purpose of repeating it to friends, before the idea of turning it into Latin occurred to him. Whence we may conclude that Chaucer and Petrarch met at Padua early in 1373; that Petrarch told Chaucer the story by word of mouth, either in Italian or French; and that Chaucer shortly after obtained a copy of Petrarch's Latin version, which he kept constantly before him whilst making his own translation.
Jump up ^ "Sources and Analogues of the Canterbury Tales", 2002, p. 22.
Jump up ^ Cooper, 8–9.
Jump up ^ Cooper, 17–18.
Jump up ^ Cooper, 18.
^ Jump up to: a b c Podgorski, Daniel (December 29, 2015). "Puppetry and the "Popet:" Fiction, Reality, and Empathy in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales". The Gemsbok. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
Jump up ^ Cooper, 22–24.
Jump up ^ Cooper, 24–25.
Jump up ^ Cooper, 25–26.
Jump up ^ Cooper, 5–6.
Jump up ^ Donald R. Howard, Chaucer and the Medieval World (London, 1987), pp. 410–417.
Jump up ^ Bisson, pp. 49–51, 56–62.
Jump up ^ Bisson, pp. 50.
Jump up ^ Bisson, pp. 61–64.
Jump up ^ Bisson, pp. 66–67.
Jump up ^ Bisson, pp. 67–68.
Jump up ^ Bisson, pp. 73–75, 81.
Jump up ^ Bisson, pp. 91–95.
Jump up ^ Rubin, 106–107.
Jump up ^ "The Prioress's Tale", by Prof. Jane Zatta.
Jump up ^ Bisson, pp. 99–102.
Jump up ^ Bisson, pp. 110–113.
Jump up ^ Bisson, pp. 117–119.
Jump up ^ Bisson, pp. 123–131.
Jump up ^ Bisson, pp. 132–134.
Jump up ^ Bisson, pp. 139–142.
Jump up ^ Bisson, pp. 138.
Jump up ^ Bisson, pp. 141–142.
Jump up ^ Bisson, pp. 143.
^ Jump up to: a b Cooper, 19
Jump up ^ Cooper, 21.
Jump up ^ Bishop, Norma J. "Liminal Space in Travellers’ Tales: Historical and Fictional Passages (Folklore, Ritual, History).” Order No. 8615152 The Pennsylvania State University, 1986. Ann Arbor: ProQuest. Web. 30 Sep. 2015.
Jump up ^ Jost, Jean. “Urban and Liminal Space in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale: Perilous or Protective?” Albrecht Classen, ed. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture : Urban Space in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age. Berlin, DEU: Walter de Gruyter, 2009. Print.
Jump up ^ Bloomfield, Morton W. “The ‘Friar’s Tale’ as a Liminal Tale.” The Chaucer Review 17.4 (1983): 286–291. Print.
Jump up ^ Nowlin, Steele. “Between Precedent and Possibility: Liminality, Historicity, and Narrative in Chaucer's ‘The Franklin's Tale.’" Studies in Philology 103.1 (2006): 47–67. Print.
Jump up ^ Pearsall, 294-5.
Jump up ^ Pearsall, 295-97.
Jump up ^ Pearsall, 298–302.
Jump up ^ Trigg, Stephanie, Congenial Souls: Reading Chaucer from Medieval to Postmodern, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002, p. 86. ISBN 0-8166-3823-3.
Jump up ^ Trigg, pp. 86–88, 97.
Jump up ^ Trigg, pp. 88–97.
Jump up ^ Brewer, Charlotte, Editing Piers Plowman: The Evolution of the Text, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 8–9. ISBN 0-521-34250-3.
Jump up ^ Ohlgren, Thomas, Medieval Outlaws, Parlor Press, 2005, pp. 264–265. ISBN 1-932559-62-0.
Jump up ^ Ellis, Steve, Chaucer at Large, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000, pp. 64–65. ISBN 0-8166-3376-2.
Jump up ^ Pencak, William, The Films of Derek Jarman, Jefferson: McFarland & Co, 2002, pp. 178–9. ISBN 0-7864-1430-8.
Jump up ^ "BBC – Drama – Canterbury Tales". BBC Drama article about the series. Retrieved 6 May 2007.
Jump up ^ "On These Walls: Inscriptions and Quotations in the Buildings of the Library of Congress". Retrieved 31 December 2012.

tag: ol


document_title: Kinect

question_text: the depth sensor of the kinect uses what type of projector

root

text: Kinect

text: History

text: Kinect was first announced on June 1, 2009 at E3 2009 under the code name "Project Natal".[22] Three demos were shown to showcase Kinect when it was revealed at Microsoft's E3 2009 Media Briefing: Ricochet, Paint Party and Milo & Kate.[23] A demo based on Burnout Paradise was also shown outside of Microsoft's media briefing.[24] The skeletal mapping technology shown at E3 2009 was capable of simultaneously tracking four people,[25][26][27][28] with a feature extraction of 48 skeletal points on a human body at 30 Hz.[29][28]

tag: p

text: It was rumored that the launch of Project Natal would be accompanied with the release of a new Xbox 360 console (as either a new retail configuration,[30][31] a significant design revision[32] and/or a modest hardware upgrade[33]). Microsoft dismissed the reports in public and repeatedly emphasized that Project Natal would be fully compatible with all Xbox 360 consoles. Microsoft indicated that the company considers it to be a significant initiative, as fundamental to Xbox brand as Xbox Live,[34] and with a launch akin to that of a new Xbox console platform.[35] Kinect was even referred to as a "new Xbox" by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at a speech for Executives' Club of Chicago.[36][37] When asked if the introduction will extend the time before the next-generation console platform is launched (historically about 5 years between platforms),[38] Microsoft corporate vice president Shane Kim reaffirmed that the company believes that the life cycle of Xbox 360 will last through 2015 (10 years).[26]

text: During Kinect's development, project team members experimentally adapted numerous games to Kinect-based control schemes to help evaluate usability. Among these games were Beautiful Katamari and Space Invaders Extreme, which were demonstrated at Tokyo Game Show in September 2009.[39] According to creative director Kudo Tsunoda, adding Kinect-based control to pre-existing games would involve significant code alterations, making it unlikely for Kinect features to be added through software updates.[40]

text: Although the sensor unit was originally planned to contain a microprocessor that would perform operations such as the system's skeletal mapping, it was revealed in January 2010 that the sensor would no longer feature a dedicated processor. Instead, processing would be handled by one of the processor cores of Xbox 360's Xenon CPU.[41] According to Alex Kipman, Kinect system consumes about 10-15% of Xbox 360's computing resources.[42] However, in November, Alex Kipman made a statement that "the new motion control tech now only uses a single-digit percentage of Xbox 360's processing power, down from the previously stated 10 to 15 percent."[43] A number of observers commented that the computational load required for Kinect makes the addition of Kinect functionality to pre-existing games through software updates even less likely, with concepts specific to Kinect more likely to be the focus for developers using the platform.[41]

text: On March 25, 2010, Microsoft sent out a save the date flier for an event called the "World Premiere 'Project Natal' for Xbox 360 Experience" at E3 2010. The event took place on the evening of Sunday, June 13, 2010 at Galen Center[44] and featured a performance by Cirque du Soleil. It was announced that the system would officially be called Kinect, a portmanteau of the words "kinetic" and "connect", which describe key aspects of the initiative.[45] Microsoft also announced that the North American launch date for Kinect will be November 4, 2010.[46] Despite previous statements dismissing speculation of a new Xbox 360 to accompany the launch of the new control system, Microsoft announced at E3 2010 that it was introducing a redesigned Xbox 360, complete with a connector port ready for Kinect. In addition, on July 20, 2010, Microsoft announced a Kinect bundle with a redesigned Xbox 360, to be available with Kinect launch.[47]

text: On June 16, 2011, Microsoft announced the beta release of its SDK, allowing development of non-commercial applications running on Microsoft Windows 7, using the Kinect for Xbox 360 hardware.[48]

text: On July 21, 2011, Microsoft announced that the first ever white Kinect sensor would be available as part of "Xbox 360 Limited Edition Kinect Star Wars Bundle", which also includes custom a Star Wars-themed console and controller, and copies of Kinect Adventures and Kinect Star Wars.[49] Previously, all Kinect sensors had been glossy black.

text: On October 31, 2011, Microsoft announced launching of the Kinect for Windows program with release of SDK to commercial companies. David Dennis, Product Manager at Microsoft, said, "There are hundreds of organizations we are working with to help them determine what's possible with the tech".[50]

text: On February 1, 2012, Microsoft released the Kinect for Windows version of the hardware device, and the final version of the SDK that required the new hardware, allowing commercial applications. It said that more than 300 companies from over 25 countries were working on Kinect-ready apps.[51]

text: Launch

text: The tabloid the New York Post claimed Microsoft had a $500 million budget for advertising the launch of Kinect.[52] While this claim was widely re-reported,[53][54][55] an examination of the 10-Q from Microsoft reveals a 20% year-over-year increase ($85 million) for sales and marketing the quarter Kinect was launched for all of the Entertainment and Devices division, making the total sales and marketing spend $425 million for the entire division.[56] The marketing campaign You Are the Controller, aiming to reach new audiences, included advertisements on Kellogg's cereal boxes and Pepsi bottles, commercials during shows such as Dancing with the Stars and Glee as well as print ads in various magazines such as People and InStyle.[57]

text: On October 19, Microsoft advertised Kinect on The Oprah Winfrey Show by giving free Xbox 360 consoles and Kinect sensors to the people in the audience.[58] Two weeks later, Kinect bundles with Xbox 360 consoles were also given away to the audience of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.[59] On October 23, Microsoft held a pre-launch party for Kinect in Beverly Hills. The party was hosted by Ashley Tisdale and was attended by soccer star David Beckham and his three sons, Cruz, Brooklyn, and Romeo. Guests were treated to sessions with Dance Central and Kinect Adventures, followed by Tisdale having a Kinect voice chat with Nick Cannon.[60] Between November 1 and 28, Burger King gave away a free Kinect bundle "every 15 minutes".[61]

text: A major event was organized on November 3 in Times Square, where singer Ne-Yo performed with hundreds of dancers in anticipation of Kinect's midnight launch.[62]

text: Kinect was launched in North America on November 4, 2010,[2] in Europe on November 10, 2010,[1] in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore on November 18, 2010,[4][63][64] and in Japan on November 20, 2010.[65] Purchase options for the sensor peripheral include a bundle with the game Kinect Adventures and console bundles with either a 4 GB[47][66][67] or 250 GB[68] Xbox 360 console and Kinect Adventures.[47][66][67][68]

text: Technology

text: Kinect for Xbox 360 (2010)

text: Kinect for Xbox 360 was a combination of Microsoft built software and hardware. The hardware included a range chipset technology by Israeli developer PrimeSense, which developed a system consisting of an infrared projector and camera and a special microchip that generates a grid from which the location of a nearby object in 3 dimensions can be ascertained.[69][70][71] This 3D scanner system called Light Coding[72] employs a variant of image-based 3D reconstruction.[73][74]

text: The Kinect sensor[12] is a horizontal bar connected to a small base with a motorized pivot and is designed to be positioned lengthwise above or below the video display. The device features an "RGB camera, depth sensor and multi-array microphone running proprietary software",[75] which provide full-body 3D motion capture, facial recognition and voice recognition capabilities. At launch, voice recognition was only made available in Japan, United Kingdom, Canada and United States. Mainland Europe received the feature later in spring 2011.[76] Currently voice recognition is supported in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States. The Kinect sensor's microphone array enables Xbox 360 to conduct acoustic source localization and ambient noise suppression, allowing for things such as headset-free party chat over Xbox Live.[12]

text: The depth sensor consists of an infrared laser projector combined with a monochrome CMOS sensor, which captures video data in 3D under any ambient light conditions.[12][25] The sensing range of the depth sensor is adjustable, and Kinect software is capable of automatically calibrating the sensor based on gameplay and the player's physical environment, accommodating for the presence of furniture or other obstacles.[29]

text: Described by Microsoft personnel as the primary innovation of Kinect,[26][77][78] the software technology enables advanced gesture recognition, facial recognition and voice recognition.[27] According to information supplied to retailers, Kinect is capable of simultaneously tracking up to six people, including two active players for motion analysis with a feature extraction of 20 joints per player.[79] However, PrimeSense has stated that the number of people the device can "see" (but not process as players) is only limited by how many will fit in the field-of-view of the camera.[80]

text: Reverse engineering[81] has determined that the Kinect's various sensors output video at a frame rate of ≈9 Hz to 30 Hz depending on resolution. The default RGB video stream uses 8-bit VGA resolution (640 × 480 pixels) with a Bayer color filter, but the hardware is capable of resolutions up to 1280x1024 (at a lower frame rate) and other colour formats such as UYVY. The monochrome depth sensing video stream is in VGA resolution (640 × 480 pixels) with 11-bit depth, which provides 2,048 levels of sensitivity. The Kinect can also stream the view from its IR camera directly (i.e.: before it has been converted into a depth map) as 640x480 video, or 1280x1024 at a lower frame rate. The Kinect sensor has a practical ranging limit of 1.2–3.5 m (3.9–11.5 ft) distance when used with the Xbox software. The area required to play Kinect is roughly 6 m2, although the sensor can maintain tracking through an extended range of approximately 0.7–6 m (2.3–19.7 ft). The sensor has an angular field of view of 57° horizontally and 43° vertically, while the motorized pivot is capable of tilting the sensor up to 27° either up or down. The horizontal field of the Kinect sensor at the minimum viewing distance of ≈0.8 m (2.6 ft) is therefore ≈87 cm (34 in), and the vertical field is ≈63 cm (25 in), resulting in a resolution of just over 1.3 mm (0.051 in) per pixel. The microphone array features four microphone capsules[82] and operates with each channel processing 16-bit audio at a sampling rate of 16 kHz.[79]

text: Because the Kinect sensor's motorized tilt mechanism requires more power than the Xbox 360's USB ports can supply,[83] the device makes use of a proprietary connector combining USB communication with additional power. Redesigned Xbox 360 S models include a special AUX port for accommodating the connector,[84] while older models require a special power supply cable (included with the sensor)[82] that splits the connection into separate USB and power connections; power is supplied from the mains by way of an AC adapter.[83]

text: Kinect for Windows (2012)

text: On February 21, 2011, Microsoft announced that in spring 2011 it would release a preliminary software development kit (SDK) enabling researchers and enthusiasts to develop applications running on Microsoft Windows PCs. The beta version initially supported the Kinect for Xbox 360 hardware, connected to a PC, and only non-commercial applications were allowed. The first beta was released for Windows 7 on June 16, 2011.[14][15][16] Beta 2 was released on the 1 year anniversary of Kinect for Xbox 360, on November 3, 2011.[85]

text: On February 1, 2012, a new hardware version of the device called Kinect for Windows was released at a suggested price of US $249. It was similar to the existing Xbox 360 device but tested and supported under warranty for commercial Windows applications. At the same time, version 1.0 of the SDK was released, allowing commercial use, with licence terms requiring the use of the Kinect for Windows hardware even for non-commercial use.[86]

text: The SDK included Windows 7 compatible PC drivers for Kinect device. It provided Kinect capabilities to developers to build applications with C++, C#, or Visual Basic by using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and included the following features:

text:
Raw sensor streams: Access to low-level streams from the depth sensor, color camera sensor, and four-element microphone array.
Skeletal tracking: The capability to track the skeleton image of one or two people moving within Kinect's field of view for gesture-driven applications.
Advanced audio capabilities: Audio processing capabilities include sophisticated acoustic noise suppression and echo cancellation, beam formation to identify the current sound source, and integration with Windows speech recognition API.
Sample code and Documentation.[87]

text: In March 2012, Craig Eisler, the general manager of Kinect for Windows, said that almost 350 companies are working with Microsoft on custom Kinect applications for Microsoft Windows.[88]

text: In March 2012, Microsoft announced that next version of Kinect for Windows SDK would be available in May 2012. Kinect for Windows 1.5 was released on May 21, 2012. It adds new features, support for many new languages and debut in 19 more countries.[89][90]

text:
Kinect for Windows 1.5 SDK would include 'Kinect Studio' a new app that allows developers to record, playback, and debug clips of users interacting with applications.[91]
Support for new "seated" or "10-joint" skeletal system that will let apps track the head, neck, and arms of a Kinect user - whether they're sitting down or standing; which would work in default and near mode.
Support for four new languages for speech recognition – French, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese. Additionally it would add support for regional dialects of these languages along with English.[92]
It would be available in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan in May and Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, India, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates in June.[93]

text: Kinect for Windows SDK for the first-generation sensor was updated a few more times, with version 1.6 released October 8, 2012,[94] version 1.7 released March 18, 2013,[95] and version 1.8 released September 17, 2013.[96]

text: Kinect for Xbox One (2013)

text: Kinect for Xbox One was released with Xbox One on November 22, 2013.[97] The hardware included a time-of-flight sensor developed by Microsoft, replacing the older technology from PrimeSense.[98]

text: Xbox One consoles ship with an updated version of Kinect; the new Kinect uses a wide-angle time-of-flight camera, and processes 2 gigabits of data per second to read its environment. The new Kinect has greater accuracy with three times the fidelity over its predecessor and can track without visible light by using an active IR sensor. It has a 60% wider field of vision that can detect a user up to 3 feet from the sensor, compared to six feet for the original Kinect, and can track up to 6 skeletons at once. It can also detect a player's heart rate, facial expression, the position and orientation of 25 individual joints (including thumbs), the weight put on each limb, speed of player movements, and track gestures performed with a standard controller. The color camera captures 1080p video that can be displayed in the same resolution as the viewing screen, allowing for a broad range of scenarios. In addition to improving video communications and video analytics applications, this provides a stable input on which to build interactive applications. Kinect's microphone is used to provide voice commands for actions such as navigation, starting games, and waking the console from sleep mode.[99][100]

text: All Xbox One consoles were initially shipped with the Kinect sensor included—a holdover from a previously-announced, but retracted mandate requiring Kinect to be plugged into the console at all times for it to function.[101] In June 2014, bundles without Kinect were made available,[102] along with an updated Xbox One SDK allowing game developers to explicitly disable Kinect skeletal tracking, freeing up system resources that were previously reserved for Kinect even if it was disabled or unplugged.[102][103]

text: A standalone Kinect for Xbox One, bundled with a digital copy of Dance Central Spotlight, was released on October 7, 2014.[104]

text: Kinect for Windows v2 (2014)

text: The second-generation Kinect for Windows v2, based on the Kinect for Xbox One hardware, was first released in 2014. Version 2.0 of the SDK was also released, which supported both the Kinect for Windows v2 and the Kinect for Xbox One, which were internally identical. An adapter cable was required to use the Kinect for Xbox One on a PC.[20][8]

text: Software

text: Requiring at least 190 MB of available storage space,[105] Kinect system software allows users to operate Xbox 360 Dashboard console user interface through voice commands and hand gestures. Techniques such as voice recognition and facial recognition are employed to automatically identify users. Among the applications for Kinect is Video Kinect, which enables voice chat or video chat with other Xbox 360 users or users of Windows Live Messenger. The application can use Kinect's tracking functionality and Kinect sensor's motorized pivot to keep users in frame even as they move around. Other applications with Kinect support include ESPN, Zune Marketplace,[105] Netflix, Hulu Plus[106] and Last.fm.[107] Microsoft later confirmed that all forthcoming applications would be required to have Kinect functionality for certification.[108]

text: Xbox 360 games that require Kinect are packaged in special purple cases (as opposed to the green cases used by all other Xbox 360 games), and contain a prominent "Requires Kinect Sensor" logo on their front cover. Games that include features utilizing Kinect, but do not require it for standard gameplay, contain a "Better with Kinect Sensor" branding on their front covers.[109]

text: Kinect launched on November 4, 2010 with 17 titles.[110] Third-party publishers of available and announced Kinect games include, among others, Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, LucasArts, THQ, Activision, Konami, Sega, Capcom, Namco Bandai and MTV Games. Along with retail games, there are also select Xbox Live Arcade titles which require the peripheral.

text: Kinect Fun Labs

text: At E3 2011, Microsoft announced Kinect Fun Labs: a collection of various gadgets and minigames that are accessible from Xbox 360 Dashboard. These gadgets includes Build A Buddy, Air Band, Kinect Googly Eyes, Kinect Me, Bobblehead, Kinect Sparkler, Junk Fu[111] and Avatar Kinect.[112][113][114]

text: Open source drivers

text: In November 2010, Adafruit Industries offered a bounty for an open-source driver for Kinect. Microsoft initially voiced its disapproval of the bounty, stating that it "does not condone the modification of its products" and that it had "built in numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering".[115] This reaction, however, was caused by a misunderstanding within Microsoft,[116] and the company later clarified its position, claiming that while it does not condone hacking of either the physical device or the console, the USB connection was left open by design.

text:
“
The first thing to talk about is, Kinect was not actually hacked. Hacking would mean that someone got to our algorithms that sit inside of the Xbox and was able to actually use them, which hasn't happened. Or, it means that you put a device between the sensor and the Xbox for means of cheating, which also has not happened. That's what we call hacking, and that's what we have put a ton of work and effort to make sure doesn't actually occur. What has happened is someone wrote an open-source driver for PCs that essentially opens the USB connection, which we didn't protect, by design, and reads the inputs from the sensor. The sensor, again, as I talked earlier, has eyes and ears, and that's a whole bunch of noise that someone needs to take and turn into signal.
”

— Microsoft's Alex Kipman speaking formally on NPR's Science Friday[117]

tag: table

text: On November 10, Adafruit announced Héctor Martín as the winner,[118][119] who had produced a Linux driver that allows the use of both the RGB camera and depth sensitivity functions of the device.[120][121] It was later revealed that Johnny Lee, a core member of Microsoft's Kinect development team, had secretly approached Adafruit with the idea of a driver development contest and had personally financed it.[122]

text: In December 2010, PrimeSense, whose depth sensing chips were used in the Kinect for Xbox 360 hardware, released their own open source drivers along with motion tracking middleware called NITE.[123] PrimeSense later announced that it had teamed up with Asus to develop a PC-compatible device similar to Kinect for Chinese markets, called the Wavi Xtion. The product was released in October 2011.[124][125]

text: OpenNI is an open-source software framework that is able to read sensor data from Kinect, among other natural user interface sensors.

text: Third-party development

text: Numerous developers are researching possible applications of Kinect that go beyond the system's intended purpose of playing games. For example, Philipp Robbel of MIT combined Kinect with iRobot Create to map a room in 3D and have the robot respond to human gestures,[126] while an MIT Media Lab team is working on a JavaScript extension for Google Chrome called depthJS that allows users to control the browser with hand gestures.[127] Other programmers, including Robot Locomotion Group at MIT, are using the drivers to develop a motion-controller user interface similar to the one envisioned in Minority Report.[128] The developers of MRPT have integrated open source drivers into their libraries and provided examples of live 3D rendering and basic 3D visual SLAM.[129] Another team has shown an application that allows Kinect users to play a virtual piano by tapping their fingers on an empty desk.[130] Oliver Kreylos, a researcher at University of California, Davis, adopted the technology to improve live 3-dimensional videoconferencing, which NASA has shown interest in.[131]

text: Alexandre Alahi from EPFL presented a video surveillance system that combines multiple Kinect devices to track groups of people even in complete darkness.[132] Companies So touch and Evoluce have developed presentation software for Kinect that can be controlled by hand gestures; among its features is a multi-touch zoom mode.[133] In December 2010, the free public beta of HTPC software KinEmote was launched; it allows navigation of Boxee and XBMC menus using a Kinect sensor.[134] Soroush Falahati wrote an application that can be used to create stereoscopic 3D images with a Kinect sensor.[135]

text: For a limited time in May 2011, a Topshop store in Moscow set up a Kinect kiosk that could overlay a collection of dresses onto the live video feed of customers. Through automatic tracking, position and rotation of the virtual dress were updated even as customers turned around to see the back of the outfit.[citation needed]

text: Kinect also shows compelling potential for use in medicine. Researchers at the University of Minnesota have used Kinect to measure a range of disorder symptoms in children, creating new ways of objective evaluation to detect such conditions as autism, attention-deficit disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.[136] Several groups have reported using Kinect for intraoperative, review of medical imaging, allowing the surgeon to access the information without contamination.[137][138] This technique is already in use at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, where doctors use it to guide imaging during cancer surgery.[139] At least one company, GestSure Technologies, is pursuing the commercialization of such a system.[140]

text: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) signed up for the Kinect for Windows Developer program in November 2013 to use the new Kinect to manipulate a robotic arm in combination with an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, creating "the most immersive interface" the unit had built to date.[141]

text: Another application of Kinect is for multi-touch displays. A Seattle-based company that graduated from Microsoft's Kinect Accelerator, Ubi Interactive, developed software for the Kinect to work with projectors to allow touchscreen-like capabilities on various surfaces.[142]

text: Kinect is used with a number of ROS robots via OpenNI.[143]

text: Reception

text: Kinect for Xbox 360

text:
Reception

Review scores

Publication
Score

CVG
8.8/10[144]

Game Informer
8/10[145]

IGN
7.5/10[146]

CNET
3.5/5[147]

Engadget
6/10[148]

USA Today
[149]

TechRadar
[150]

The Washington Post
[151]

PC Magazine
4/5[152]

Game Guru
9/10 [153]

Tech Shout
9.2/10 [154]

text: Upon its release, the Kinect garnered generally positive opinions from reviewers and critics. IGN gave the device 7.5 out of 10, saying that "Kinect can be a tremendous amount of fun for casual players, and the creative, controller-free concept is undeniably appealing", though adding that for "$149.99, a motion-tracking camera add-on for Xbox 360 is a tough sell, especially considering that the entry level variation of Xbox 360 itself is only $199.99".[146] Game Informer rated Kinect 8 out of 10, praising the technology but noting that the experience takes a while to get used to and that the spatial requirement may pose a barrier.[145] Computer and Video Games called the device a technological gem and applauded the gesture and voice controls, while criticizing the launch lineup and Kinect Hub.[144]

text: CNET's review pointed out how Kinect keeps players active with its full-body motion sensing but criticized the learning curve, the additional power supply needed for older Xbox 360 consoles and the space requirements.[147] Engadget, too, listed the large space requirements as a negative, along with Kinect's launch lineup and the slowness of the hand gesture UI. The review praised the system's powerful technology and the potential of its yoga and dance games.[148] Kotaku considered the device revolutionary upon first use but noted that games were sometimes unable to recognize gestures or had slow responses, concluding that Kinect is "not must-own yet, more like must-eventually own."[155] TechRadar praised the voice control and saw a great deal of potential in the device whose lag and space requirements were identified as issues.[150] Gizmodo also noted Kinect's potential and expressed curiosity in how more mainstream titles would utilize the technology.[156] Ars Technica's review expressed concern that the core feature of Kinect, its lack of a controller, would hamper development of games beyond those that have either stationary players or control the player's movement automatically.[157]

text: The mainstream press also reviewed Kinect. USA Today compared it to the futuristic control scheme seen in Minority Report, stating that "playing games feels great" and giving the device 3.5 out of 4 stars.[149] David Pogue from The New York Times predicted players will feel a "crazy, magical, omigosh rush the first time you try the Kinect." Despite calling the motion tracking less precise than Wii's implementation, Pogue concluded that "Kinect’s astonishing technology creates a completely new activity that’s social, age-spanning and even athletic."[158] The Globe and Mail titled Kinect as setting a "new standard for motion control." The slight input lag between making a physical movement and Kinect registering it was not considered a major issue with most games, and the review called Kinect "a good and innovative product," rating it 3.5 out of 4 stars.[159]

text: Kinect for Xbox One

text: Although featuring improved performance over the original Kinect, its successor has been subject to mixed responses. In its Xbox One review, Engadget praised Xbox One's Kinect functionality, such as face recognition login and improved motion tracking, but that whilst "magical", "every false positive or unrecognized [voice] command had us reaching for the controller."[160] The Kinect's inability to understand some accents in English was criticized.[161] Writing for Time, Matt Peckham described the device as being "chunky" in appearance, but that the facial recognition login feature was "creepy but equally sci-fi-future cool", and that the new voice recognition system was a "powerful, addictive way to navigate the console, and save for a few exceptions that seem to be smoothing out with use". However, its accuracy was found to be affected by background noise, and Peckham further noted that launching games using voice recognition required that the full title of the game be given rather than an abbreviated name that the console "ought to semantically understand", such as Forza Motorsport 5 rather than "Forza 5".[162]

text: Prior to Xbox One's launch, privacy concerns were raised over the new Kinect; critics showed concerns the device could be used for surveillance, stemming from the originally announced requirements that Xbox One's Kinect be plugged in at all times, plus the initial always-on DRM system that required the console to be connected to the internet to ensure continued functionality. Privacy advocates contended that the increased amount of data which could be collected with the new Kinect (such as a person's eye movements, heart rate, and mood) could be used for targeted advertising. Reports also surfaced regarding recent Microsoft patents involving Kinect, such as a DRM system based on detecting the number of viewers in a room, and tracking viewing habits by awarding achievements for watching television programs and advertising. While Microsoft stated that its privacy policy "prohibit[s] the collection, storage, or use of Kinect data for the purpose of advertising", critics did not rule out the possibility that these policies could be changed prior to the release of the console. Concerns were also raised that the device could also record conversations, as its microphone remains active at all times. In response to the criticism, a Microsoft spokesperson stated that users are "in control of when Kinect sensing is On, Off or Paused", will be provided with key privacy information and settings during the console's initial setup, and that user-generated content such as photos and videos "will not leave your Xbox One without your explicit permission."[163][164][165][166] Microsoft ultimately decided to reverse its decision to require Kinect usage on Xbox One, but the console still shipped with the device upon its launch in November 2013.[101]

text: Sales

text: While announcing Kinect's discontinuation in an interview with Fast Co. Design on October 25, 2017, Microsoft stated that 35 million units had been sold since its release.[10] 24 million units of Kinect had been shipped by February 2013.[167] Having sold 8 million units in its first 60 days on the market, Kinect claimed the Guinness World Record of being the "fastest selling consumer electronics device".[168][169][170][171] According to Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter, Kinect bundles accounted for about half of all Xbox 360 console sales in December 2010 and for more than two-thirds in February 2011.[172][173] More than 750,000 Kinect units were sold during the week of Black Friday 2011.[174][175]

text: Other motion controllers

text: Kinect competes with several motion controllers on other home consoles, such as Wii Remote Plus for Wii and Wii U, PlayStation Move/PlayStation Eye for PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Camera for PlayStation 4.

text: Awards

text:
The machine learning work on human motion capture within Kinect won the 2011 MacRobert Award for engineering innovation.[176]
Kinect Won T3's "Gadget of the Year" award for 2011.[177] It also won the "Gaming Gadget of the Year" prize.[178]
'Microsoft Kinect for Windows Software Development Kit' was ranked second in "The 10 Most Innovative Tech Products of 2011" at Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awards ceremony in New York City.[179][180]
Microsoft Kinect for Windows won Innovation of the Year in the 2012 Seattle 2.0 Startup Awards.[181]

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