The Technology
My technology was the Xbox 360 Kinect. Kinect is completely gestured based and is used to play video games in a new way. Video games played with Kinect are entirely motion based. The camera on the Kinect will capture the players movement and make the avatar do the same motion. Also in some games if another person wants to play a game and someone is already playing all the other person has to do is stand in front of the camera long enough for it to register him or her and the game will automatically go to spilt-screen.
The first game to show the ability to go to split screen was Kinect Adventu
res which is just a bunch of mini games where the object is to get as many pins as possible before the game ends. During Kinect Adventures a camera will take the player’s or players’ picture and then it can upload the photos directly to Facebook.
This technology is important because it is the first example of of gesture based computing that will be available to the public. Kinect had already showed the ability to mix the real world with virtual world when it was called Project Natal with the boy Milo who was able to interact with people as if he was a real person.
The Future of Gaming
Kinect will be one of the first gestured based devices that will be available to almost everyone. It will probably change the way people decorate their houses to give them enough room to move around and do the motions that Kinect requires. Kinect will also revolutionize the way people play games. So instead of using a controller the person’s body will act as the controller being able to use movements to do actions in game. Kinect also allows people to do video calls with other people with Kinect’s camera. During the video chats people can give each other things, whether be something like a photo, or a gift for a person’s avatar.
If Kinect has already eliminated the need for a controller to play video games, how much longer would it be before everything else is using the same concept? Some time in the future everybody will be using some type of gestured based or voice activated computing in their daily lives.
Who knows maybe someday the politicians could be able to stream and entire speech, and all they had to do to set it up was perform a few hand motions. While this would probably will not be done with a video game system, Kinect could inspired, or have been inspired by, similar technologies that can be used for the same purpose.
With Kinect being the first completely gesture based video game system, Microsoft has taken a big risk with it. Will people be want buy something that they haven’t seen done before? Depending on whether or not people really get into this will determine how fast move in to a time where everything is gesture based. Soon people will b
e able to use a computer with out the need for a mouse or even a physical keyboard.
Soon people will be using computers in a different way. Instead of using a mouse and keyboard to operate a computer people will be able to use a computer using motion control. Instead of using Instant Messaging or Email to communicate with other people will probably be able to use live video chat to talk to friends and share things like videos and pictures by dragging them into the window.
Another thing that will change with our interaction with computer is voice activation. Right now there are some simple voice activation software is available but there are some bugs with them that have to be worked out like sound interference. An example of voice activated programing is Dragon Naturally Speaking which is one of the first voice activation programs made.
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