title: Privacy

text: In the United Kingdom, it is not possible to bring an action for invasion of privacy. An action may be brought under another tort (usually breach of confidence) and privacy must then be considered under EC law. In the UK, it is sometimes a defence that disclosure of private information was in the public interest. There is, however, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), an independent public body set up to promote access to official information and protect personal information. They do this by promoting good practice, ruling on eligible complaints, giving information to individuals and organisations, and taking action when the law is broken. The relevant UK laws include: Data Protection Act 1998; Freedom of Information Act 2000; Environmental Information Regulations 2004; Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003. The ICO has also provided a "Personal Information Toolkit" online which explains in more detail the various ways of protecting privacy online.


title: Privacy

text: Although the US Constitution does not explicitly include the right to privacy, individual as well as locational privacy may be implicitly granted by the Constitution under the 4th Amendment. The Supreme Court of the United States has found that other guarantees have "penumbras" that implicitly grant a right to privacy against government intrusion, for example in "Griswold v. Connecticut" and "Roe v. Wade." "Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization" later overruled "Roe v. Wade", with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas characterizing "Griswold"'s penumbral argument as having a "facial absurdity", casting doubt on the validity of a constitutional right to privacy in the United States and of previous decisions relying on it. In the United States, the right of freedom of speech granted in the First Amendment has limited the effects of lawsuits for breach of privacy. Privacy is regulated in the US by the Privacy Act of 1974, and various state laws. The Privacy Act of 1974 only applies to federal agencies in the executive branch of the federal government. Certain privacy rights have been established in the United States via legislation such as the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLB), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).


title: Privacy

text: Unlike the EU and most EU-member states, the US does not recognize the right to privacy of non-US citizens. The UN's Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy, Joseph A. Cannataci, criticized this distinction.


title: Privacy

text: The theory of contextual integrity defines privacy as an appropriate information flow, where appropriateness, in turn, is defined as conformance with legitimate, informational norms specific to social contexts.


title: Privacy

text: In 1890, the United States jurists Samuel D. Warren and Louis Brandeis wrote "The Right to Privacy", an article in which they argued for the "right to be let alone", using that phrase as a definition of privacy. This concept relies on the theory of natural rights and focuses on protecting individuals. The citation was a response to recent technological developments, such as photography, and sensationalist journalism, also known as yellow journalism.


title: Privacy

text: There is extensive commentary over the meaning of being "let alone", and among other ways, it has been interpreted to mean the right of a person to choose seclusion from the attention of others if they wish to do so, and the right to be immune from scrutiny or being observed in private settings, such as one's own home. Although this early vague legal concept did not describe privacy in a way that made it easy to design broad legal protections of privacy, it strengthened the notion of privacy rights for individuals and began a legacy of discussion on those rights in the US.


title: Privacy

text: Limited access refers to a person's ability to participate in society without having other individuals and organizations collect information about them.


title: Privacy

text: Various theorists have imagined privacy as a system for limiting access to one's personal information. Edwin Lawrence Godkin wrote in the late 19th century that "nothing is better worthy of legal protection than private life, or, in other words, the right of every man to keep his affairs to himself, and to decide for himself to what extent they shall be the subject of public observation and discussion." Adopting an approach similar to the one presented by Ruth Gavison Nine years earlier, Sissela Bok said that privacy is "the condition of being protected from unwanted access by others—either physical access, personal information, or attention."


title: Privacy

text: Control over one's personal information is the concept that "privacy is the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others." Generally, a person who has consensually formed an interpersonal relationship with another person is not considered "protected" by privacy rights with respect to the person they are in the relationship with. Charles Fried said that "Privacy is not simply an absence of information about us in the minds of others; rather it is the control we have over information about ourselves. Nevertheless, in the era of big data, control over information is under pressure.


title: Privacy

text: Alan Westin defined four states—or experiences—of privacy: solitude, intimacy, anonymity, and reserve. Solitude is a physical separation from others; Intimacy is a "close, relaxed; and frank relationship between two or more individuals" that results from the seclusion of a pair or small group of individuals. Anonymity is the "desire of individuals for times of 'public privacy.'" Lastly, reserve is the "creation of a psychological barrier against unwanted intrusion"; this creation of a psychological barrier requires others to respect an individual's need or desire to restrict communication of information concerning themself.


title: Privacy

text: In addition to the psychological barrier of reserve, Kirsty Hughes identified three more kinds of privacy barriers: physical, behavioral, and normative. Physical barriers, such as walls and doors, prevent others from accessing and experiencing the individual. (In this sense, "accessing" an individual includes accessing personal information about them.) Behavioral barriers communicate to others—verbally, through language, or non-verbally, through personal space, body language, or clothing—that an individual does not want the other person to access or experience them. Lastly, normative barriers, such as laws and social norms, restrain others from attempting to access or experience an individual.


title: Privacy

text: Privacy is sometimes defined as an option to have secrecy. Richard Posner said that privacy is the right of people to "conceal information about themselves that others might use to their disadvantage".


title: Privacy

text: In various legal contexts, when privacy is described as secrecy, a conclusion is reached: if privacy is secrecy, then rights to privacy do not apply for any information which is already publicly disclosed. When privacy-as-secrecy is discussed, it is usually imagined to be a selective kind of secrecy in which individuals keep some information secret and private while they choose to make other information public and not private.


title: Privacy

text: Privacy may be understood as a necessary precondition for the development and preservation of personhood. Jeffrey Reiman defined privacy in terms of a recognition of one's ownership of their physical and mental reality and a moral right to self-determination. Through the "social ritual" of privacy, or the social practice of respecting an individual's privacy barriers, the social group communicates to developing children that they have exclusive moral rights to their bodies—in other words, moral ownership of their body. This entails control over both active (physical) and cognitive appropriation, the former being control over one's movements and actions and the latter being control over who can experience one's physical existence and when.


title: Privacy

text: Alternatively, Stanley Benn defined privacy in terms of a recognition of oneself as a subject with agency—as an individual with the capacity to choose. Privacy is required to exercise choice. Overt observation makes the individual aware of himself or herself as an object with a "determinate character" and "limited probabilities." Covert observation, on the other hand, changes the conditions in which the individual is exercising choice without his or her knowledge and consent.


title: Privacy

text: In addition, privacy may be viewed as a state that enables autonomy, a concept closely connected to that of personhood. According to Joseph Kufer, an autonomous self-concept entails a conception of oneself as a "purposeful, self-determining, responsible agent" and an awareness of one's capacity to control the boundary between self and other—that is, to control who can access and experience him or her and to what extent. Furthermore, others must acknowledge and respect the self's boundaries—in other words, they must respect the individual's privacy.


title: Privacy

text: The studies of psychologists such as Jean Piaget and Victor Tausk show that, as children learn that they can control who can access and experience them and to what extent, they develop an autonomous self-concept. In addition, studies of adults in particular institutions, such as Erving Goffman's study of "total institutions" such as prisons and mental institutions, suggest that systemic and routinized deprivations or violations of privacy deteriorate one's sense of autonomy over time.


title: Privacy

text: Privacy may be understood as a prerequisite for the development of a sense of self-identity. Privacy barriers, in particular, are instrumental in this process. According to Irwin Altman, such barriers "define and limit the boundaries of the self" and thus "serve to help define [the self]." This control primarily entails the ability to regulate contact with others. Control over the "permeability" of the self's boundaries enables one to control what constitutes the self and thus to define what is the self.


title: Privacy

text: In addition, privacy may be seen as a state that fosters personal growth, a process integral to the development of self-identity. Hyman Gross suggested that, without privacy—solitude, anonymity, and temporary releases from social roles—individuals would be unable to freely express themselves and to engage in self-discovery and self-criticism. Such self-discovery and self-criticism contributes to one's understanding of oneself and shapes one's sense of identity.


title: Privacy

text: In a way analogous to how the personhood theory imagines privacy as some essential part of being an individual, the intimacy theory imagines privacy to be an essential part of the way that humans have strengthened or intimate relationships with other humans. Because part of human relationships includes individuals volunteering to self-disclose most if not all personal information, this is one area in which privacy does not apply.


title: Privacy

text: James Rachels advanced this notion by writing that privacy matters because "there is a close connection between our ability to control who has access to us and to information about us, and our ability to create and maintain different sorts of social relationships with different people." Protecting intimacy is at the core of the concept of sexual privacy, which law professor Danielle Citron argues should be protected as a unique form of privacy.


title: Privacy

text: Physical privacy could be defined as preventing "intrusions into one's physical space or solitude." An example of the legal basis for the right to physical privacy is the U.S. Fourth Amendment, which guarantees "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures".


title: Privacy

text: Physical privacy may be a matter of cultural sensitivity, personal dignity, and/or shyness. There may also be concerns about safety, if, for example one is wary of becoming the victim of crime or stalking. There are different things that can be prevented to protect one's physical privacy, including people watching (even through recorded images) one's intimate behaviours or body parts and unhautorized access to one's personal possessions or places. Examples of possible efforts used to avoid the former, especially for modesty reasons, are clothes, walls, fences, privacy screens, cathedral glass, window coverings, etc.


title: Privacy

text: Government agencies, corporations, groups/societies and other organizations may desire to keep their activities or secrets from being revealed to other organizations or individuals, adopting various security practices and controls in order to keep private information confidential. Organizations may seek legal protection for their secrets. For example, a government administration may be able to invoke executive privilege or declare certain information to be classified, or a corporation might attempt to protect valuable proprietary information as trade secrets.


title: Privacy

text: Privacy self-synchronization is a hypothesized mode by which the stakeholders of an enterprise privacy program spontaneously contribute collaboratively to the program's maximum success. The stakeholders may be customers, employees, managers, executives, suppliers, partners or investors. When self-synchronization is reached, the model states that the personal interests of individuals toward their privacy is in balance with the business interests of enterprises who collect and use the personal information of those individuals.


title: Privacy

text: David Flaherty believes networked computer databases pose threats to privacy. He develops 'data protection' as an aspect of privacy, which involves "the collection, use, and dissemination of personal information". This concept forms the foundation for fair information practices used by governments globally. Flaherty forwards an idea of privacy as information control, "[i]ndividuals want to be left alone and to exercise some control over how information about them is used".


title: Privacy

text: Richard Posner and Lawrence Lessig focus on the economic aspects of personal information control. Posner criticizes privacy for concealing information, which reduces market efficiency. For Posner, employment is selling oneself in the labour market, which he believes is like selling a product. Any 'defect' in the 'product' that is not reported is fraud. For Lessig, privacy breaches online can be regulated through code and law. Lessig claims "the protection of privacy would be stronger if people conceived of the right as a property right", and that "individuals should be able to control information about themselves".


title: Privacy

text: There have been attempts to establish privacy as one of the fundamental human rights, whose social value is an essential component in the functioning of democratic societies.


title: Privacy

text: Priscilla Regan believes that individual concepts of privacy have failed philosophically and in policy. She supports a social value of privacy with three dimensions: shared perceptions, public values, and collective components. Shared ideas about privacy allows freedom of conscience and diversity in thought. Public values guarantee democratic participation, including freedoms of speech and association, and limits government power. Collective elements describe privacy as collective good that cannot be divided. Regan's goal is to strengthen privacy claims in policy making: "if we did recognize the collective or public-good value of privacy, as well as the common and public value of privacy, those advocating privacy protections would have a stronger basis upon which to argue for its protection".


title: Privacy

text: Leslie Regan Shade argues that the human right to privacy is necessary for meaningful democratic participation, and ensures human dignity and autonomy. Privacy depends on norms for how information is distributed, and if this is appropriate. Violations of privacy depend on context. The human right to privacy has precedent in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Shade believes that privacy must be approached from a people-centered perspective, and not through the marketplace.


title: Privacy

text: Dr. Eliza Watt, Westminster Law School, University of Westminster in London, UK, proposes application of the International Human Right Law (IHRL) concept of “virtual control” as an approach to deal with extraterritorial mass surveillance by state intelligence agencies.Dr. Watt envisions the “virtual control” test, understood as a remote control over the individual's right to privacy of communications, where privacy is recognized under the ICCPR, Article 17. This, she contends, may help to close the normative gap that is being exploited by nation states.


title: Privacy

text: The "privacy paradox" is a phenomenon in which online users state that they are concerned about their privacy but behave as if they were not. While this term was coined as early as 1998, it wasn't used in its current popular sense until the year 2000.


title: Privacy

text: Susan B. Barnes similarly used the term "privacy paradox" to refer to the ambiguous boundary between private and public space on social media. When compared to adults, young people tend to disclose more information on social media. However, this does not mean that they are not concerned about their privacy. Susan B. Barnes gave a case in her article: in a television interview about Facebook, a student addressed her concerns about disclosing personal information online. However, when the reporter asked to see her Facebook page, she put her home address, phone numbers, and pictures of her young son on the page.


title: Privacy

text: The privacy paradox has been studied and scripted in different research settings. Several studies have shown this inconsistency between privacy attitudes and behavior among online users. However, by now an increasing number of studies have also shown that there are significant and at times large correlations between privacy concerns and information sharing behavior, which speaks against the privacy paradox. A meta-analysis of 166 studies published on the topic reported an overall small but significant relation between privacy concerns and informations sharing or use of privacy protection measures. So although there are several individual instances or anecdotes where behavior appear paradoxical, on average privacy concerns and privacy behaviors seem to be related, and several findings question the general existence of the privacy paradox.


title: Privacy

text: However, the relationship between concerns and behavior is likely only small, and there are several arguments that can explain why that is the case. According to the attitude-behavior gap, attitudes and behaviors are "in general" and in most cases not closely related. A main explanation for the partial mismatch in the context of privacy specifically is that users lack awareness of the risks and the degree of protection. Users may underestimate the harm of disclosing information online. On the other hand, some researchers argue that the mismatch comes from lack of technology literacy and from the design of sites. For example, users may not know how to change their default settings even though they care about their privacy. Psychologists Sonja Utz and Nicole C. Krämer particularly pointed out that the privacy paradox can occur when users must trade-off between their privacy concerns and impression management.


title: Privacy

text: Personal data have different personal and public value and are used for different purposes in citizen-state interactions, compared to customer-business interactions. Therefore, the privacy paradox in citizen state actions – for example in AI driven public services – urges a broader public debate on how governments can safeguard citizen privacy, beyond the economic valuation of personal data.


title: Privacy

text: A study conducted by Susanne Barth and Menno D.T. de Jo demonstrates that decision making takes place on an irrational level, especially when it comes to mobile computing. Mobile applications in particular are often built up in such a way that spurs decision making that is fast and automatic without assessing risk factors. Protection measures against these unconscious mechanisms are often difficult to access while downloading and installing apps. Even with mechanisms in place to protect user privacy, users may not have the knowledge or experience to enable these mechanisms.


title: Privacy

text: Users of mobile applications generally have very little knowledge of how their personal data are used. When they decide which application to download, they typically do not rely on the information provided by application vendors regarding the collection and use of personal data. Other research finds that users are much more likely to be swayed by cost, functionality, design, ratings, reviews and number of downloads than requested permissions, regardless of how important users may claim permissions to be when asked.


title: Privacy

text: A study by Zafeiropoulou specifically examined location data, which is a form of personal information increasingly used by mobile applications. Their survey also found evidence that supports the existence of privacy paradox for location data. Privacy risk perception in relation to the use of privacy-enhancing technologies survey data indicates that a high perception of privacy risk is an insufficient motivator for people to adopt privacy protecting strategies, while knowing they exist. It also raises a question on what the value of data is, as there is no equivalent of a stock-market for personal information.


title: Privacy

text: The willingness to incur a privacy risk is suspected to be driven by a complex array of factors including risk attitudes, personal value for private information, and general attitudes to privacy (which may be derived from surveys). One experiment aiming to determine the monetary value of several types of personal information indicated relatively low evaluations of personal information.


title: Privacy

text: Users are not always given the tools to live up to their professed privacy concerns, and they are sometimes willing to trade private information for convenience, functionality, or financial gain, even when the gains are very small. One study suggests that people think their browser history is worth the equivalent of a cheap meal. Another finds that attitudes to privacy risk do not appear to depend on whether it is already under threat or not.


title: Privacy

text: It is suggested by Andréa Belliger and David J. Krieger that the privacy paradox should not be considered a paradox, but more of a "privacy dilemma", for services that cannot exist without the user sharing private data. However, the general public is typically not given the choice whether to share private data or not, making it difficult to verify any claim that a service truly cannot exist without sharing private data.


title: Privacy

text: The privacy calculus model posits that two factors determine privacy behavior, namely privacy concerns (or perceived risks) and expected benefits. By now, the privacy calculus was supported by several studies, and it stands in direct contrast to the privacy paradox. Both perspectives can be consoled if they are understood from a more moderate position: Behavior is neither completely paradoxical nor completely logical, and the consistency between concerns and behavior depends on users, situations, or contexts.


title: Privacy

text: As with other conceptions of privacy, there are various ways to discuss what kinds of processes or actions remove, challenge, lessen, or attack privacy. In 1960 legal scholar William Prosser created the following list of activities which can be remedied with privacy protection:


title: Privacy

text: From 2004 to 2008, building from this and other historical precedents, Daniel J. Solove presented another classification of actions which are harmful to privacy, including collection of information which is already somewhat public, processing of information, sharing information, and invading personal space to get private information.


title: Privacy

text: In the context of harming privacy, information collection means gathering whatever information can be obtained by doing something to obtain it. Examples include surveillance and interrogation. Another example is how consumers and marketers also collect information in the business context through facial recognition which has recently caused a concern for things such as privacy. There is currently research being done related to this topic.


title: Privacy

text: It can happen that privacy is not harmed when information is available, but that the harm can come when that information is collected as a set, then processed together in such a way that the collective reporting of pieces of information encroaches on privacy. Actions in this category which can lessen privacy include the following:


title: Privacy

text: Information dissemination is an attack on privacy when information which was shared in confidence is shared or threatened to be shared in a way that harms the subject of the information.


title: Privacy

text: There are various examples of this. Breach of confidentiality is when one entity promises to keep a person's information private, then breaks that promise. Disclosure is making information about a person more accessible in a way that harms the subject of the information, regardless of how the information was collected or the intent of making it available. Exposure is a special type of disclosure in which the information disclosed is emotional to the subject or taboo to share, such as revealing their private life experiences, their nudity, or perhaps private body functions. Increased accessibility means advertising the availability of information without actually distributing it, as in the case of doxxing. Blackmail is making a threat to share information, perhaps as part of an effort to coerce someone. Appropriation is an attack on the personhood of someone, and can include using the value of someone's reputation or likeness to advance interests which are not those of the person being appropriated. Distortion is the creation of misleading information or lies about a person.


title: Privacy

text: Invasion of privacy, a subset of expectation of privacy, is a different concept from the collecting, aggregating, and disseminating information because those three are a misuse of available data, whereas invasion is an attack on the right of individuals to keep personal secrets. An invasion is an attack in which information, whether intended to be public or not, is captured in a way that insults the personal dignity and right to private space of the person whose data is taken.


title: Privacy

text: An "intrusion" is any unwanted entry into a person's private personal space and solitude for any reason, regardless of whether data is taken during that breach of space. "Decisional interference" is when an entity somehow injects itself into the personal decision-making process of another person, perhaps to influence that person's private decisions but in any case doing so in a way that disrupts the private personal thoughts that a person has.


title: Privacy

text: Similarly to actions which reduce privacy, there are multiple angles of privacy and multiple techniques to improve them to varying extents. When actions are done at an organizational level, they may be referred to as cybersecurity.


title: Privacy

text: Individuals can encrypt e-mails via enabling either two encryption protocols, S/MIME, which is built into companies like Apple or Outlook and thus most common, or PGP. The Signal messaging app, which encrypts messages so that only the recipient can read the message, is notable for being available on many mobile devices and implementing a form of perfect forward secrecy.


title: Privacy

text: Anonymizing proxies or anonymizing networks like I2P and Tor can be used to prevent Internet service providers (ISP) from knowing which sites one visits and with whom one communicates, by hiding IP addresses and location, but does not necessarily protect a user from third party data mining. Anonymizing proxies are built into a user's device, in comparison to a Virtual Private Network (VPN), where users must download software. Using a VPN hides all data and connections that are exchanged between servers and a user's computer, resulting in the online data of the user being unshared and secure, providing a barrier between the user and their ISP, and is especially important to use when a user is connected to public Wi-Fi. However, users should understand that all their data does flow through the VPN's servers rather than the ISP. Users should decide for themselves if they wish to use either an anonymizing proxy or a VPN.


title: Privacy

text: In a more non-technical sense, using incognito mode or private browsing mode will prevent a user's computer from saving history, Internet files, and cookies, but the ISP will still have access to the users' search history. Using anonymous search engines will not share a user's history, clicks, and will obstruct ad blockers.


title: Privacy

text: Concrete solutions on how to solve paradoxical behavior still do not exist. Many efforts are focused on processes of decision making, like restricting data access permissions during application installation, but this would not completely bridge the gap between user intention and behavior. Susanne Barth and Menno D.T. de Jong believe that for users to make more conscious decisions on privacy matters, the design needs to be more user-oriented.


title: Privacy

text: In a social sense, simply limiting the amount of personal information that users posts on social media could increase their security, which in turn makes it harder for criminals to perform identity theft. Moreover, creating a set of complex passwords and using two-factor authentication can allow users to be less susceptible to their accounts being compromised when various data leaks occur. Furthermore, users should protect their digital privacy by using anti-virus software, which can block harmful viruses like a pop-up scanning for personal information on a users' computer.


title: Privacy

text: Although there are laws that promote the protection of users, in some countries, like the U.S., there is no federal digital privacy law and privacy settings are essentially limited by the state of current enacted privacy laws. To further their privacy, users can start conversing with representatives, letting representatives know that privacy is a main concern, which in turn increases the likelihood of further privacy laws being enacted.


title: Privacy

text: David Attenborough, a biologist and natural historian, affirmed that gorillas "value their privacy" while discussing a brief escape by a gorilla in London Zoo.


title: Privacy

text: Animals in zoos have been found to exhibit harmful or different behaviours due to the presence of visitors watching them:


title: Privacy

text: Some studies have found in the contrary that being watched does not change non-human animals' behaviours, including covering faces.


title: Destroyer (Kiss album)

text: Destroyer is the fourth studio album by American hard rock band Kiss, released on March 15, 1976, by Casablanca Records in the US. It was the third successive Kiss album to reach the top 40 in the US, as well as the first to chart in Germany and New Zealand. The album was certified gold by the RIAA on April 22, 1976, and platinum on November 11 of the same year, the first Kiss album to achieve platinum. The album marked a departure from the raw sound of the band's first three albums.


title: Destroyer (Kiss album)

text: After attaining modest commercial success with their first three studio albums, Kiss achieved a commercial breakthrough with the 1975 concert album "Alive!" It was the first album by the band to be certified gold. The success of "Alive!", which spent 110 weeks on the charts, benefited not only the struggling band but also their cash-strapped label Casablanca Records. Kiss signed a new contract with Casablanca in late 1975, partly because the label had been very supportive from the start of the band's career. The contract was for two albums, an indication that Casablanca was unsure if the group could duplicate the accomplishments of "Alive!"


title: Destroyer (Kiss album)

text: Rehearsals for "Destroyer" began in August 1975, while the group was embarked on their supporting tour for "Alive!" Bob Ezrin, who had previously worked with Alice Cooper, was brought in to produce the album. The band felt that Ezrin was the right person to help them take their sound to the next level and to maintain the commercial success they had achieved with "Alive!" Before meeting with Ezrin, the band had written and recorded a 15-song demo in the Magna Graphics Studio in August 1975. The first demo recorded during the "Destroyer" sessions was "Ain't None of Your Business" featuring Peter Criss on vocals. The plodding, heavy song, written by country songwriters Becky Hobbs and Lew Anderson, was rejected by the band and later appeared on the 1977 debut album by Michael Des Barres' band Detective. Although this song was rejected, other outside songs and suggestions were accepted by the band. In particular, Kim Fowley and Mark Anthony became important contributors during the songwriting process., bringing in the title and basic structure of the song "King of the Night Time World" from their previous band Hollywood Stars' then-unreleased 1974 album "Shine Like a Radio" (which also featured the original version of the Alice Cooper song "Escape" from "Welcome to My Nightmare").


title: Destroyer (Kiss album)

text: Ezrin flat out rejected most of the material, as only heavily re-worked versions of "God of Thunder" and "Detroit Rock City" made it to the album, and one song "Mad Dog" was pilfered for lyrics to "Sweet Pain" and a riff for "Flaming Youth". Other songs from this demo were re-worked for the following album "Rock and Roll Over" and Gene Simmons' 1978 solo album while others remained unreleased until the 2021 release of "Destroyer" as a 2CD set and Super Deluxe box set.


title: Destroyer (Kiss album)

text: The first recording sessions for the album took place on September 3–6, 1975 at Electric Lady Studios in New York City, during a brief break between the "Dressed to Kill" and "Alive!" tours. The basic album tracks were recorded during this time. The majority of the recording sessions for "Destroyer" took place in January 1976, after the conclusion of the "Alive!" tour. Ezrin introduced to Kiss sound effects, strings, screaming children, reversed drums (on "God of Thunder") and a children's choir. The song "Great Expectations" uses the first phrase of the main theme from the second movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 (known as "Sonata Pathétique"), but the songwriting is credited to Simmons and Ezrin.


title: Destroyer (Kiss album)

text: During the recording sessions, Ezrin resorted to numerous tactics designed to increase the quality of music Kiss recorded. Because none of the group were trained musicians, Ezrin halted the sessions at one point to provide lessons in basic music theory. To instill a sense of discipline, he wore a whistle around his neck and exhorted the band with sayings such as, "Campers, we're going to work!" When Simmons stopped playing during the recording of an outro, Ezrin yelled at him, saying, "Don't you ever stop a take unless I tell you!"


title: Destroyer (Kiss album)

text: Paul Stanley later compared the experience of working with Ezrin as "musical boot camp" but said that the group "came out a lot smarter for it." Simmons echoed the sentiment by stating, "It was exactly what we needed at the time."


title: Destroyer (Kiss album)

text: "Destroyer" is the first Kiss album to prominently feature outside musicians, such as members of the New York Philharmonic. One musician not credited was Dick Wagner, from Alice Cooper's band, replacing Ace Frehley on the track "Sweet Pain". Wagner also played the acoustic guitar found on the song "Beth". The success of "Alive!" and "Destroyer" enabled the band to embark on their first tour of Europe.


title: Destroyer (Kiss album)

text: The cover art for "Destroyer" was painted by fantasy artist Ken Kelly. Kelly was invited to a show and given a backstage pass. He said of the performance, "It blew me away." Kelly was later commissioned by the band to draw the cover for 1977's "Love Gun".


title: Destroyer (Kiss album)

text: Kelly's original version of the album cover was rejected by the record company because they felt the scene was too violent looking with the rubble and flames. Also, the original version had the members of Kiss wearing the "Alive!" costumes. The front cover shows the group striding on top of a pile of rubble, and a desolate background spotted with destroyed buildings, some of which are engulfed in flames. The back cover shows a similar scene, but with more buildings on fire. The front of the inner sleeve featured a large Kiss logo and the lyrics to "Detroit Rock City". The other side displayed the lyric "SHOUT IT OUT LOUD", as well as an advertisement for the Kiss Army fan club.


title: Destroyer (Kiss album)

text: In anticipation of the 35th anniversary of the release of "Destroyer", producer Bob Ezrin approached Simmons and Stanley about doing a remix and re-release of the original album. With their approval, Ezrin acquired digital copies of the original 16-track analog master tapes. In addition to re-equalizing elements of each song, Ezrin also added in some parts of tracks that had been omitted from the original mix. These include some additional vocals on "Detroit Rock City" and "Beth", and the substitution of a guitar solo by Frehley on "Sweet Pain" for the one from the original that had been performed by Wagner (a version of "Sweet Pain" with Frehley's solo was included as track 6, while the original version with Wagner's solo is appended as a "bonus" track at the end of the new CD). Ezrin also used digital manipulation to fix an incorrect lyric (changing "down 95" to "doin' 95") on "Detroit Rock City". The resulting album, titled "Destroyer: Resurrected", was released on August 21, 2012. It featured Ken Kelly's original cover artwork before alteration by Casablanca for the 1976 release.


title: Destroyer (Kiss album)

text: "Destroyer: Resurrected" met with mixed critical reception. William Clark of "Guitar International" wrote: "Each track sounds crisper, clearer and louder, which are always welcome qualities when you’re listening to a classic album of the likes of "Destroyer"". However, "Circus" magazine in a joint review with Aerosmith's contemporary release of "Rocks" praised "Rocks" while stating that "Destroyer" "stinks." The album returned to the Billboard charts, debuting at No. 11 the week after its re-release. In 2019, the record was released in orange translucent vinyl, retailed exclusively by Walmart in the U.S..


title: Destroyer (Kiss album)

text: "Destroyer" sold well upon its release on March 15, 1976, and was certified gold on April 22. Although exact sales figures are not known, Stanley stated that the album initially sold 850,000 copies in the US, well over any of Kiss's first three studio albums. After peaking at No. 11 on the "Billboard" 200 album chart on May 15, "Destroyer" quickly fell and by August was at No. 192. The first three singles—"Shout It Out Loud", "Flaming Youth" and "Detroit Rock City"—failed to ignite sales any further, though "Shout It Out Loud" did give the band their first No. 1 record, in Canada. The band and Ezrin cited fan backlash as the reason "Destroyer" did not meet sales expectations. Ezrin also stated that the "grassroots rock press" was particularly critical of the album. "Rolling Stone" referred to "bloated ballads", "pedestrian drumming" and "lackluster performances" in its review. Robert Christgau, writing in "The Village Voice", felt that it was Kiss's "least interesting record" and criticized producer Ezrin for adding "only bombast and melodrama". It was not until radio stations started playing the B-side of the "Detroit Rock City" single "Beth", that the album started to sell as expected. The ballad, which according to Simmons was deliberately put on the B-side to force stations to play "Detroit Rock City", started receiving numerous listener requests and became an unexpected hit. "Beth" (co-written and sung by Peter Criss) was re-released as the fourth single in late August, and it peaked at No. 7 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 singles chart on September 25. It was the group's first Top 10 song and reignited sales of the album.


title: Destroyer (Kiss album)

text: On November 11, 1976 "Destroyer" became the first Kiss album to be certified platinum. The album was re-certified at the double platinum level on September 9, 2011 and is the band's best selling in the post-1991 Soundscan era, selling 726,000 copies in the United States from 1991 to March 4, 2012.


title: Destroyer (Kiss album)

text: The album has received recognition in later years. In 1989, "Kerrang!" magazine listed the album at No. 36 among the "100 Greatest Heavy Metal Albums of All Time". In "The Rolling Stone Album Guide" (2004), Rob Sheffield referred to "Destroyer" as "the inevitable arty concept album, from the drink-smoke-drive-die saga 'Detroit Rock City' to the touching 'Do You Love Me?'". The album was also featured in "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". In 2006, it was placed at No. 60 on "Guitar World" magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Albums of All Time. Greg Prato of AllMusic described "Destroyer" as "one of Kiss' most experimental studio albums, but also one of their strongest and most interesting." Pitchfork's Jason Josephes said that it is "easily one of the best albums in the Kiss canon" and credited Ezrin for ushering along "even more of an art/hard rock album than Kiss's previous efforts." Canadian journalist Martin Popoff, described "Destroyer" as a "no party album, looming darkly, ponderous, almost haunting at times, basically uncommunicative and puzzling due to its stylistic over-extension" and judged it a "success of early no-chops metal". In 2012, "Rolling Stone" ranked it at No. 489 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, calling it "a ridiculously over-the-top party-rock album that just gets better with age".


title: Kinect

text: Kinect is a line of motion sensing input devices produced by Microsoft and first released in 2010. The devices generally contain RGB cameras, and infrared projectors and detectors that map depth through either structured light or time of flight calculations, which can in turn be used to perform real-time gesture recognition and body skeletal detection, among other capabilities. They also contain microphones that can be used for speech recognition and voice control.


title: Kinect

text: Kinect was originally developed as a motion controller peripheral for Xbox video game consoles, distinguished from competitors (such as Nintendo's Wii Remote and Sony's PlayStation Move) by not requiring physical controllers. The first-generation Kinect was based on technology from Israeli company PrimeSense, and unveiled at E3 2009 as a peripheral for Xbox 360 codenamed "Project Natal". It was first released on November 4, 2010, and would go on to sell eight million units in its first 60 days of availability. The majority of the games developed for Kinect were casual, family-oriented titles, which helped to attract new audiences to Xbox 360, but did not result in wide adoption by the console's existing, overall userbase.


title: Kinect

text: As part of the 2013 unveiling of Xbox 360's successor, Xbox One, Microsoft unveiled a second-generation version of Kinect with improved tracking capabilities. Microsoft also announced that Kinect would be a required component of the console, and that it would not function unless the peripheral is connected. The requirement proved controversial among users and critics due to privacy concerns, prompting Microsoft to backtrack on the decision. However, Microsoft would still bundle the new Kinect with Xbox One consoles upon their launch in November 2013. A market for Kinect-based games still did not emerge after the Xbox One's launch; Microsoft would later offer Xbox One hardware bundles without Kinect included, and later revisions of the console removed the dedicated ports used to connect it (requiring a powered USB adapter instead). Microsoft ended production of Kinect for Xbox One in October 2017.


title: Kinect

text: Kinect has also been used as part of non-gaming applications in academic and commercial environments, as it was cheaper and more robust compared to other depth-sensing technologies at the time. While Microsoft initially objected to such applications, it later released software development kits (SDKs) for the development of Microsoft Windows applications that use Kinect. In 2020, Microsoft released Azure Kinect as a continuation of the technology integrated with the Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform. Part of the Kinect technology was also used within Microsoft's Hololens project.


title: Kinect

text: The origins of the Kinect started around 2005, at a point where technology vendors were starting to develop depth-sensing cameras. Microsoft had been interested in a 3D camera for the Xbox line earlier but because the technology had not been refined, had placed it in the "Boneyard", a collection of possible technology they could not immediately work on.


title: Kinect

text: In 2005, PrimeSense was founded by tech-savvy mathematicians and engineers from Israel to develop the "next big thing" for video games, incorporating cameras that were capable of mapping a human body in front of them and sensing hand motions. They showed off their system at the 2006 Game Developers Conference, where Microsoft's Alex Kipman, the general manager of hardware incubation, saw the potential in PrimeSense's technology for the Xbox system. Microsoft began discussions with PrimeSense about what would need to be done to make their product more consumer-friendly: not only improvements in the capabilities of depth-sensing cameras, but a reduction in size and cost, and a means to manufacturer the units at scale was required. PrimeSense spent the next few years working at these improvements.


title: Kinect

text: Nintendo released the Wii in November 2006. The Wii's central feature was the Wii Remote, a handheld device that was detected by the Wii through a motion sensor bar mounted onto a television screen to enable motion controlled games. Microsoft felt pressure from the Wii, and began looking into depth-sensing in more detail with PrimeSense's hardware, but could not get to the level of motion tracking they desired. While they could determine hand gestures, and sense the general shape of a body, they could not do skeletal tracking. A separate path within Microsoft looked to create an equivalent of the Wii Remote, considering that this type of unit may become standardized similar to how two-thumbstick controllers became a standard feature. However, it was still ultimately Microsoft's goal to remove any device between the player and the Xbox.


title: Kinect

text: Kudo Tsunoda and Darren Bennett joined Microsoft in 2008, and began working with Kipman on a new approach to depth-sensing aided by machine learning to improve skeletal tracking. They internally demonstrated this and established where they believed the technology could be in a few years, which led to the strong interest to fund further development of the technology; this has also occurred at a time that Microsoft executives wanted to abandon the Wii-like motion tracking approach, and favored the depth-sensing solution to present a product that went beyond the Wii's capabilities. The project was greenlit by late 2008 with work started in 2009.


title: Kinect

text: The project was codenamed "Project Natal" after the Brazilian city Natal, Kipman's birthplace. Additionally, Kipman recognized the Latin origins of the word "natal" to mean "to be born", reflecting the new types of audiences they hoped to draw with the technology. Much of the initial work was related to ethnographic research to see how video game players' home environments were laid out, lit, and how those with Wiis used the system to plan how Kinect units would be used. The Microsoft team discovered from this research that the up-and-down angle of the depth-sensing camera would either need to be adjusted manually, or would require an expensive motor to move automatically. Upper management at Microsoft opted to include the motor despite the increased cost to avoid breaking game immersion. Kinect project work also involved packaging the system for mass production and optimizing its performance. Hardware development took around 22 months.


title: Kinect

text: During hardware development, Microsoft engaged with software developers to use Kinect. Microsoft wanted to make games that would be playable by families since Kinect could sense multiple bodies in front of it. One of the first internal titles developed for the device was the pack-in game "Kinect Adventures" developed by Good Science Studio that was part of Microsoft Studios. One of the game modes of "Kinect Adventures" was "Reflex Ridge", based on the Japanese Brain Wall game where players attempt to contort their bodies in a short time to match cutouts of a wall moving at them. This type of game was a key example of the type of interactivity they wanted with Kinect, and its development helped feed into the hardware improvements.


title: Kinect

text: Nearing the planned release, there was a problem of widespread testing of Kinect in various room types and different bodies accounting for age, gender, and race among other factors, while keeping the details of the unit confidential. Microsoft engaged in a company-wide program offering employees to take home Kinect units to test them. Microsoft also brought other non-gaming divisions, including its Microsoft Research, Microsoft Windows, and Bing teams to help complete the system. Microsoft established its own large-scale manufacturing facility to bulk product Kinect units and test them.


title: Kinect

text: Kinect was first announced to the public as "Project Natal" on June 1, 2009, during Microsoft's press conference at E3 2009; film director Steven Spielberg joined Microsoft's Don Mattrick to introduce the technology and its potential. Three demos were presented during the conference—Microsoft's "Ricochet" and "Paint Party", and Lionhead Studios' "Milo & Kate" created by Peter Molyneux—while a Project Natal-enabled version of Criterion Games' "Burnout Paradise" was shown during the E3 exhibition. By E3 2009, the skeletal mapping technology was capable of simultaneously tracking four people, with a feature extraction of 48 skeletal points on a human body at 30 Hz. Microsoft had not committed to a release date for Project Natal at E3 2009, but affirmed it would be after 2009, and likely in 2010 to stay competitive with the Wii and the PlayStation Move (Sony Interactive Entertainment's own motion-sensing system using hand-held devices).


title: Kinect

text: In the months following E3 2009, rumors that a new Xbox 360 console associated with Project Natal emerged, either a retail configuration that incorporated the peripheral, or as a hardware revision or upgrade to support the peripheral. 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 considered Project Natal to be a significant initiative, as fundamental to Xbox brand as Xbox Live, and with a planned launch akin to that of a new Xbox console platform. Microsoft's vice president Shane Kim said the company did not expect Project Natal would extend the anticipated lifetime of the Xbox 360, which had been planned to last ten years through 2015, nor delay the launch of the successor to the Xbox 360.


title: Kinect

text: Following the E3 2009 show and through 2010, the Project Natal 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. According to Tsunoda, adding Project Natal-based control to pre-existing games involved significant code alterations, and made it unlikely that existing games could be patched through software updates to support the unit. Microsoft also expanded its draw to third-party developers to encourage them to develop Project Natal games. Companies like Harmonix and Double Fine quickly took to Project Natal and saw the potential in it, and committed to developing games for the unit, such as the launch title "Dance Central" from Harmonix.


title: Kinect

text: Although its sensor unit was originally planned to contain a microprocessor that would perform operations such as the system's skeletal mapping, Microsoft reported 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. Around this time, Kipmen estimated that the Kinect would only take about 10 to 15% of the Xbox 360's processing power. While this was a small fraction of the Xbox 360's capabilities, industry observed believed this further pointed to difficulties in adapting pre-existing games to use Kinect, as the motion-tracking would add to a game's high computational load and exceed the Xbox 360's capabilities. These observed believed that instead the industry would develop games specific to the Kinect features.


title: Kinect

text: During Microsoft's E3 2010 press conference, it was announced that Project Natal would be officially branded as Kinect, and be released in North America on November 4, 2010. Xbox Live director Stephen Toulouse stated that the name was a portmanteau of the words "kinetic" and "connection", key aspects of the Kinect initiative. Microsoft and third-party studios exhibited Kinect-compatible games during the E3 exhibition. A new slim revision of the Xbox 360 was also unveiled to coincide with Kinect's launch, which added a dedicated port for attaching the peripheral; Kinect would be sold at launch as a standalone accessory for existing Xbox 360 owners, and as part of bundles with the new slim Xbox 360. All units included "Kinect Adventures" as a pack-in game.


title: Kinect

text: Microsoft continued to refine the Kinect technology in the months leading to the Kinect launch in November 2010. By launch, Kipman reported they had been able to reduce the Kinect's use of the Xbox 360's processor from 10 to 15% as reported in January 2010 to a "single-digit percentage".


title: Kinect

text: Xbox product director Aaron Greenberg stated that Microsoft's marketing campaign for Kinect would carry a similar scale to a console launch; the company was reported to have budgeted $500 million on advertising for the peripheral, such as television and print ads, campaigns with Burger King and Pepsi, and a launch event in New York City's Times Square on November 3 featuring a performance by Ne-Yo. Kinect was launched in North America on November 4, 2010; in Europe on November 10, 2010; in Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore on November 18, 2010; and in Japan on November 20, 2010.


title: Kinect

text: The Kinect release for the Xbox 360 was estimated to have sold eight million units in the first sixty days of release, earning the hardware the Guinness World Record for the "Fastest-Selling Consumer Electronics Device". Over 10 million had been sold by March 2011. While seemingly successful, its launch titles were primarily family-oriented games (which could be designed around Kinect's functionality and limitations), which may have drawn new audiences, but did not have the selling power of major franchises like "Battlefield" and "Call of Duty"—which were primarily designed around the Xbox 360 controller. Only an estimated 20% of the 55 million Xbox 360 owners had purchased the Kinect. The Kinect team recognized some of the downsides with more traditional games and Kinect, and continued ongoing development of the unit to be released as a second-generation unit, such as reducing the latency of motion detection and improving speech recognition. Microsoft provided news of these changes to the third-party developers to help them anticipate how the improvements can be integrated into the games.


title: Kinect

text: Concurrent with the Kinect improvements, Microsoft's Xbox hardware team had started planning for the Xbox One around mid-2011. Part of early Xbox One specifications was that the new Kinect hardware would be automatically included with the console, so that developers would know that Kinect hardware would be available for any Xbox One, and hoping to encourage developers to take advantage of that. The Xbox One was first formally announced on May 23, 2013, and shown in more detail at E3 2013 in June. Microsoft stated at these events that the Xbox One would include the updated Kinect hardware and it would be required to be plugged in at all times for the Xbox One to function. This raised concerns across the video game media: privacy advocates argued that Kinect sensor data could be used for targeted advertising, and to perform unauthorized surveillance on users. In response to these claims, Microsoft reiterated that Kinect voice recognition and motion tracking can be disabled by users, that Kinect data cannot be used for advertising per its privacy policy, and that the console would not redistribute user-generated content without permission. Several other issues with the Xbox One's original feature set had also come up, such as the requirement to be always connected to the Internet, and created a wave of consumer backlash against Microsoft.


title: Kinect

text: Microsoft announced in August 2013 that they had made several changes to the planned Xbox One release in response to the backlash. Among these was that the system would no longer require a Kinect unit to be plugged in to work, though it was still planned to package the Kinect with all Xbox One systems. However, this also required Microsoft to establish a price-point for the Xbox One/Kinect system at its November 2013 launch, more than the competing PlayStation 4 launched in the same time frame, which did not include any motion-sensing hardware. In the months after the Xbox One release, Microsoft decided to launch a Kinect-less Xbox One system in March 2014 at the same price as the PlayStation 4, after considering that the Kinect for Xbox One had not gotten the developer support, and sales of the Xbox One were lagging due to the higher price tag of the Kinect-bundled system. Richard Irving, a program group manager that oversaw Kinect, said that Microsoft had felt that it was more important to give developers and consumers the option of developing for or purchasing the Kinect rather than forcing the unit on them.


title: Kinect

text: The removal of Kinect from the Xbox One retail package was the start of the rapid decline and phase-out of the unit within Microsoft. Developers like Harmonix that had been originally targeting games to use the Xbox One had put these games on hold until they knew there was enough of a Kinect install base to justify release, which resulted in a lack of games for the Kinect and reducing any consumer drive to buy the separate unit. Microsoft became bearish on the Kinect, making no mention of the unit at E3 2015 and announcing at E3 2016 that the upcoming Xbox One hardware revision, the Xbox One S, would not have a dedicated Kinect port; Microsoft offered a USB adapter for the Kinect, provided free during an initial promotional period after the console's launch. The more powerful Xbox One X also lacked the Kinect port and required this adapter. Even though developers still released Kinect-enabled games for the Xbox One, Microsoft's lack of statements related to the Kinect during this period led to claims that the Kinect was a dead project at Microsoft.


title: Kinect

text: Microsoft formally announced it would stop manufacturing Kinect for Xbox One on October 25, 2017. Microsoft eventually discontinued the adapter in January 2018, stating that they were shifting to manufacture other accessories for the Xbox One and personal computers that were more in demand. This is considered by the media to be the point where Microsoft ceased work on the Kinect for the Xbox platform.


title: Kinect

text: While the Kinect unit for the Xbox platform had petered out, the Kinect had found new life in academia and other applications since around 2011. The functionality of the unit along with its low cost was seen to be an inexpensive means to add depth-sensing to existing applications, offsetting the high cost and unreliability of other 3D camera options at the time. In robotics, Kinect's depth-sensing would enable robots to determine the shape and approximate distances to obstacles and maneuver around them. Within the medical field, the Kinect could be used to monitor the shape and posture of a body in a quantifiable manner to enable improved health-care decisions.


title: Kinect

text: Around November 2010, after the Kinect's launch, scientists, engineers, and hobbyists had been able to hack into the Kinect to determine what hardware and internal software it had used, leading to users finding how to connect and operate the Kinect with Microsoft Windows and OS X over USB, which has unsecured data from the various camera elements that could be read. This further led to prototype demos of other possible applications, such as a gesture-based user interface for the operating system similar to that shown in the film "Minority Report", as well as pornographic applications. This mirrored similar work to hack the Wii Remote a few years earlier to use its low-cost hard for more advanced applications beyond gaming.


title: Kinect

text: Adafruit Industries, having envisioned some of the possible applications of the Kinect outside of gaming, issued a security challenge related to the Kinect, offering prize money for the successful development of an open source software development kit (SDK) and hardware drivers for the Kinect, which came to be known as Open Kinect. Adafruit named the winner, Héctor Martín, by November 10, 2010, who had produced a Linux driver that allows the use of both the RGB camera and depth sensitivity functions of the device. It was later discovered 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. Lee had said of the efforts to open the Kinect that "This is showing us the future...This is happening today, and this is happening tomorrow." and had engaged Adafruit with the contest as he been frustrated with trying to convince Microsoft's executives to explore the non-gaming avenue for the Kinect.


title: Kinect

text: Microsoft initially took issue with users hacking into the Kinect, stating they would incorporate additional safeguards into future iterations of the unit to prevent such hacks. However, by the end of November 2010, Microsoft had turned on their original position and embraced the external efforts to develop the SDK. Kipman, in an interview with NPR, said


title: Kinect

text: PrimeSense along with robotics firm Willow Garage and game developer Side-Kick launched OpenNI, a not-for-profit group to develop portable drivers for the Kinect and other natural interface (NI) devices, in November 2010. Its first set of drivers named NITE were released in December 2010. PrimeSense had also worked with ASUS to develop a version Kinect for personal computers for China. The resulting product, the Wavi Xtion, was released in October 2011.


title: Kinect

text: Microsoft announced in February 2011 that it was planning on releasing its own SDK for the Kinect within a few months, and which was officially released on June 16, 2011, but which was limited to non-commercial uses. The SDK enabled users to access the skeletal motion recognition system for up to two persons and the Kinect microphone array, features that had not been part of the prior Open Kinect SDK. Commercial interest in Kinect was still strong, with David Dennis, a product manager at Microsoft, stating "There are hundreds of organizations we are working with to help them determine what's possible with the tech". Microsoft launched its Kinect for Windows program on October 31, 2011, releasing a new SDK to a small number of companies, including Toyota, Houghton Mifflin, and Razorfish, to explore what was possible. At the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in January, Microsoft announced that it would release a dedicated Kinect for Windows unit along with the commercial SDK on February 1, 2012. the device included some hardware improvements, including support for "near mode" to recognize objects about in front of the cameras. The Kinect for Windows device was listed at , more than the original Kinect since Microsoft had considered the Xbox 360 Kinect was subsidized through game purchases, Xbox Live subscriptions, and other costs. At the launch, Microsoft stated that more than 300 companies from over 25 countries were working on Kinect-ready apps with the new unit.


title: Kinect

text: With the original announcement of the revised Kinect for Xbox One in 2013, Microsoft also confirmed it would have a second generation of Kinect for Windows based on the updated Kinect technology by 2014. The new Kinect 2 for Windows was launched on July 15, 2014, at a price. Microsoft opted to discontinue the original Kinect for Windows by the end of 2014. However, in April 2015, Microsoft announced they were also discontinuing the Kinect 2 for Windows, and instead directing commercial users to use the Kinect for Xbox One, which Microsoft said "perform identically". Microsoft stated that the demand for the Kinect 2 for Windows demand was high and difficult to keep up while also fulfilling the Kinect for Xbox One orders, and that they had found commercial developers successfully using the Kinect for Xbox One in their applications without issue.


title: Kinect

text: With Microsoft's waning focus on Kinect, PrimeSense was bought by Apple, Inc. in 2013, which incorporated parts of the technology into its Face ID system for iOS devices.


title: Kinect

text: Though Kinect had been cancelled, the ideas of it helped to spur Microsoft into looking more into accessibility for Xbox and its games. According to Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox at Microsoft, they received positive comments from parents of disabled and impaired children who were happy that Kinect allowed their children to play video games. These efforts led to the development of the Xbox Adaptive Controller, released in 2018, as one of Microsoft's efforts in this area.


title: Kinect

text: Microsoft had abandoned the idea of Kinect for video games, but still explored the potential of Kinect beyond that. Microsoft's Director of Communications Greg Sullivan stated in 2018 that "I think one of the things that is beginning to be understood is that Kinect was never really just the gaming peripheral...It was always more." Part of Kinect technology was integrated into Microsoft's Hololens, first released in 2016.


title: Kinect

text: Microsoft announced that it was working on a new version of a hardware Kinect model for non-game applications that would integrate with their Azure cloud computing services in May 2018. The use of cloud computing to offload some of the computational work from Kinect, as well as more powerful features enable by Azure such as artificial intelligence would improve the accuracy of the depth-sensing and reduce the power demand and would lead to more compact units, Microsoft had envisioned. The Azure Kinect device was released on June 27, 2019, at a price of , while the SDK for the unit had been released in February 2019.


title: Kinect

text: Sky UK announced a new line of Sky Glass television units to launch in 2022 that incorporate the Kinect technology in partnership with Microsoft. Using the Kinect features, the viewer will be able to control the television through motion controls and audio commands, and supports social features such as social viewing.


title: Kinect

text: The depth and motion sensing technology at the core of the Kinect is enabled through its depth-sensing. The original Kinect for Xbox 360 used structured light for this: the unit used a near-infrared pattern projected across the space in front of the Kinect, while an infrared sensor captured the reflected light pattern. The light pattern is deformed by the relative depth of the objects in front it, and mathematics can be used to estimate that depth based on several factors related to the hardware layout of the Kinect. While other structure light depth-sensing technologies used multiple light patterns, Kinect used as few as one as to achieve a high rate of 30 frames per second of depth sensing. Kinect for Xbox One switched over to using time of flight measurements. The infrared projector on the Kinect sends out modulated infrared light which is then captured by the sensor. Infrared light reflecting off closer objects will have a shorter time of flight than those more distant, so the infrared sensor captures how much the modulation pattern had been deformed from the time of flight, pixel-by-pixel. Time of flight measurements of depth can be more accurate and calculated in a shorter amount of time, allowing for more frames-per-second to be detected.


title: Kinect

text: Once Kinect has a pixel-by-pixel depth image, Kinect uses a type of edge detection here to delineate closer objects from the background of the shot, incorporating input from the regular visible light camera. The unit then attempts to track any moving objects from this, with the assumption that only people will be moving around in the image, and isolates the human shapes from the image. The unit's software, aided by artificial intelligence, performs segmentation of the shapes to try to identify specific body parts, like the head, arms, and hands, and track those segments individually. Those segments are used to construct a 20-point skeleton of the human body, which then can be used by game or other software to determine what actions the person has performed.


title: Kinect

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. This 3D scanner system called "Light Coding" employs a variant of image-based 3D reconstruction.


title: Kinect

text: The Kinect sensor 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 microphone array running proprietary software", 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. 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.


title: Kinect

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. 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.


title: Kinect

text: Described by Microsoft personnel as the primary innovation of Kinect, the software technology enables advanced gesture recognition, facial recognition and voice recognition. 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. 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.


title: Kinect

text: Reverse engineering 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 distance when used with the Xbox software. The area required to play Kinect is roughly 6 m, although the sensor can maintain tracking through an extended range of approximately . 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 ≈ is therefore ≈, and the vertical field is ≈, resulting in a resolution of just over per pixel. The microphone array features four microphone capsules and operates with each channel processing 16-bit audio at a sampling rate of 16 kHz.


title: Kinect

text: Because the Kinect sensor's motorized tilt mechanism requires more power than the Xbox 360's USB ports can supply, 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, while older models require a special power supply cable (included with the sensor) that splits the connection into separate USB and power connections; power is supplied from the mains by way of an AC adapter.


title: Kinect

text: Kinect for Windows is a modified version of the Xbox 360 unit which was first released on February 1, 2012, alongside the SDK for commercial use. The hardware included better components to eliminate noise along the USB and other cabling paths, and improvements in the depth-sensing camera system for detection of objects at close range, as close as , in the new "Near Mode".


title: Kinect

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:


title: Kinect

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.


title: Kinect

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.


title: Kinect

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


title: Kinect

text: An upgraded iteration of Kinect was released on November 22, 2013, for Xbox One. It 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. The recommended player's height is at least 40 inches, which roughly corresponds to children of years old and up.


title: Kinect

text: All Xbox One consoles were initially shipped with Kinect included. In June 2014, bundles without Kinect were made available, 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. As interest in Kinect waned in 2014, later revisions of the Xbox One hardware, including the Xbox One S and Xbox One X, dropped the dedicated Kinect port, requiring users to purchase a USB 3.0 and AC adapter to use the Kinect for Xbox One.


title: Kinect

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


title: Kinect

text: Considered a market failure compared to the Kinect for Xbox 360, the Kinect for Xbox One product was discontinued by October 25, 2017. Production of the adapter cord also ended by January 2018.


title: Kinect

text: Released on 15 July 2014, Kinect 2 for Windows is based on the Kinect for Xbox One and considered a replacement of the original Kinect for Windows. It was also repackaged as "Kinect for Windows v2". It is nearly identical besides the removal of Xbox branding, and included a USB 3.0/AC adapter. It released alongside version 2.0 of the Windows SDK for the platform. The MSRP was . Microsoft considers the Kinect 2 for Windows equivalent in performance to the Xbox One version.


title: Kinect

text: In April 2015 having difficulty in keeping up manufacturing demand for the Kinect for Xbox One this edition was discontinued. Microsoft directed commercial users to use the Xbox One version with a USB adapter instead.


title: Kinect

text: On May 7, 2018, Microsoft announced a new iteration of Kinect technology designed primarily for enterprise software and artificial intelligence usage. It is designed around the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, and is meant to "leverage the richness of Azure AI to dramatically improve insights and operations". It has a smaller form factor than the Xbox iterations of Kinect, and features a 12-megapixel camera, a time-of-flight depth sensor also used on the HoloLens 2, and seven microphones. A development kit was announced in February 2019.


title: Kinect

text: Requiring at least 190 MB of available storage space, 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, Netflix, Hulu Plus and Last.fm. Microsoft later confirmed that all forthcoming applications would be required to have Kinect functionality for certification.


title: Kinect

text: The Xbox One originally shipped in bundles with the Kinect; the original Xbox One user interface software had similar support for Kinect features as the Xbox 360 software, such as voice commands, user identification via skeletal or vocal recognition, and gesture-driven commands, though these features could be fully disabled due to privacy concerns. However, this had left the more traditional navigation using a controller haphazard. In May 2014, when Microsoft announced it would be releasing Xbox One systems without a Kinect, the company also announced plans to alter the Xbox One system software to remove Kinect features. Kinect support in the software was fully removed by November 2015.


title: Kinect

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, have "Better with Kinect Sensor" branding on their front covers.


title: Kinect

text: Kinect launched on November 4, 2010, with 17 titles. 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.


title: Kinect

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" and "Avatar Kinect".


title: Kinect

text: Numerous developers are researching possible applications of Kinect that go beyond the system's intended purpose of playing games, further enabled by the release of the Kinect SDK by Microsoft.


title: Kinect

text: 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, 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. 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". The developers of MRPT have integrated open source drivers into their libraries and provided examples of live 3D rendering and basic 3D visual SLAM. Another team has shown an application that allows Kinect users to play a virtual piano by tapping their fingers on an empty desk. Oliver Kreylos, a researcher at University of California, Davis, adopted the technology to improve live 3-dimensional videoconferencing, which NASA has shown interest in.


title: Kinect

text: Alexandre Alahi from EPFL presented a video surveillance system that combines multiple Kinect devices to track groups of people even in complete darkness. 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. 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. Soroush Falahati wrote an application that can be used to create stereoscopic 3D images with a Kinect sensor.


title: Kinect

text: In human motion tracking, Kinect might suffer from occlusion which is when some human body joints are occluded and cannot be tracked accurately by Kinect's skeletal model. Therefore, fusing its data with other sensors can provide a more robust tracking of the skeletal model. For instance, in a study, an Unscented Kalman filter (UKF) was used to fuse Kinect 3D position data of shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints to those obtained from two inertial measurement units (IMUs) placed on the upper and lower arm of a person. The results showed an improvement of up to 50% in the accuracy of the position tracking of the joints. In addition to solving the occlusion problem, as the sampling frequency of the IMUs was 100 Hz (compared to ~30 Hz for Kinect), the improvement of skeletal position was more evident during fast and dynamic movements.


title: Kinect

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. Several groups have reported using Kinect for intraoperative, review of medical imaging, allowing the surgeon to access the information without contamination. This technique is already in use at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, where doctors use it to guide imaging during cancer surgery. At least one company, GestSure Technologies, is pursuing the commercialization of such a system.


title: Kinect

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.


title: Kinect

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". "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. "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.


title: Kinect

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. 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. 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." TechRadar praised the voice control and saw a great deal of potential in the device whose lag and space requirements were identified as issues. Gizmodo also noted Kinect's potential and expressed curiosity in how more mainstream titles would utilize the technology. "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.


title: Kinect

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. 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." "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.


title: Kinect

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 said that while the device was "magical", "every false positive or unrecognized [voice] command had us reaching for the controller." The Kinect's inability to understand some accents in English was criticized. 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".


title: Kinect

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." 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.


title: Kinect

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. 24 million units of Kinect had been shipped by February 2013. 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". 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. More than 750,000 Kinect units were sold during the week of Black Friday 2011.


title: Kinect

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


title: Church of Ireland

text: The Church of Ireland (, ; , ) is a Christian church in Ireland and an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the second largest Christian church on the island after the Roman Catholic Church. Like other Anglican churches, it has retained elements of pre-Reformation practice, notably its episcopal polity, while rejecting the primacy of the Pope.


title: Church of Ireland

text: In theological and liturgical matters, it incorporates many principles of the Reformation, particularly those of the English Reformation, but self-identifies as being both Reformed and Catholic, in that it sees itself as the inheritor of a continuous tradition going back to the founding of Christianity in Ireland. As with other members of the global Anglican communion, individual parishes accommodate different approaches to the level of ritual and formality, variously referred to as High and Low Church.


title: Church of Ireland

text: The Church of Ireland sees itself as that 'part of the Irish Church which was influenced by the Reformation, and has its origins in the early Celtic Church of St Patrick'. This makes it both "Catholic", as the inheritor of a continuous tradition of faith and practice, and Protestant, since it rejects the authority of Rome and accepts changes in doctrine and liturgy caused by the Reformation.


title: Church of Ireland

text: Following the Synod of Ráth Breasail (also known as Rathbreasail) in 1111, Irish Catholicism transitioned from a monastic to a diocesan and parish-based mode of organisation and governance. Many Irish present-day dioceses trace their boundaries to decisions made at the synod. The work of organizing the Church was completed by the Synod of Kells which took place in 1152, under the presidency of Giovanni Cardinal Paparoni. Diocesan reform continued and the number of archbishoprics was increased from two to four. The synod granted the Primacy of Ireland to the Archdiocese of Armagh.


title: Church of Ireland

text: Some modern scholarship argues that early Irish Christianity was functionally separate from Rome but shared much of its liturgy and practice, and that this allowed both the Church of Ireland and Irish Catholicism to claim descent from Saint Patrick. It is also said that the Catholic Church in Ireland was jurisdictionally independent until 1155, when Pope Adrian IV purported to declare it a papal fief and granted Henry II of England the Lordship of Ireland in return for paying tithes; his right to do so has been disputed ever since.


title: Church of Ireland

text: In 1534, Henry VIII broke with the Papacy and became head of the Church of England; two years later, the Irish Parliament followed suit by appointing him head of the Irish church. Although many bishops and most of the clergy refused to conform, the new Church of Ireland retained possession of diocesan buildings and lands, since under the feudal system bishops held that property as vassals of the Crown. Despite the political and economic advantages of membership in the new church, a large majority of the Irish remained loyal to the Church of Rome, while in Ulster the church was outnumbered by Presbyterians. However, it remained the established church of the whole of Ireland until the First Gladstone ministry’s Irish Church Act 1869 disestablished it, with effect from 1 January 1871.


title: Church of Ireland

text: The modern Church of Ireland is the second largest religious organisation in the Republic of Ireland, and the third largest in Northern Ireland, after the Roman Catholic and Presbyterian churches.


title: Church of Ireland

text: Christianity in Ireland is generally dated to the mid to late fifth century AD, when the Romano-British cleric Saint Patrick began his conversion mission, although the exact dates are disputed. Prior to the 12th century, the Irish church was independent of Papal control, and governed by powerful monasteries, rather than bishops. While the Kingdom of Dublin looked to the English Diocese of Canterbury for guidance, in 1005 AD Brian Ború made a large donation to the Monastery of Armagh and recognised its Archbishop as Primate of all Ireland in an attempt to secure his position as High King of Ireland.


title: Church of Ireland

text: Inspired by Máel Máedóc Ua Morgair, reformist head of Bangor Abbey, the 1111 Synod of Ráth Breasail sought to reduce the power of the monasteries by creating Dioceses headed by bishops, as was common outside Ireland. Under the 1152 Synod of Kells, the Irish church received its own archbishops, rather than being subject to Canterbury. Under the Laudabiliter in 1155, English-born Pope Adrian IV granted Henry II of England the Lordship of Ireland in return for paying tithes to Rome. His claim was based on the 4th century Donation of Constantine, which allegedly gave the Papacy religious control over all Christian territories in the western Roman Empire. Its legality was disputed at the time, since Ireland had never been part of the empire, while the Donation itself was later exposed as a forgery.