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Bill Gates: Motion Sensing Natal Tech Coming to Windows
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Shane McGlaun/DailyTech
July 15, 2009
The world first got wind of what Microsoft was working on gesture control in 2007 and then we saw the end result of that project at E3 this year. Project Natal was introduced at the show allowing gamers to control the Xbox 360 with hand gestures.
At first, what Microsoft was talking about for the Xbox 360 sounded just like the Nintendo Wii. The key difference between Natal and the Wii, however, was that you could use your own bat and your own tennis racket, not a foam replica holding a Wii Remote.
Bill Gates now says that the Xbox 360 won’t be the only place that Microsoft takes advantage of Natal’s depth sensing digital camera. Gates says that the Windows team has taken the idea and ran with it. In the future, people working in the office may be able to control their PCs with simple gestures.
Gates says, “I think the value is as great for if you’re in the home, as you want to manage your movies, music, home system type stuff, it’s very cool there. In addition, I think there’s incredible value as we use that in the office connected to a Windows PC. So Microsoft research and the product groups have a lot going on there, because you can use the cost reduction that will take place over the years to say, why shouldn’t that be in most office environments.”
Gates said during his interview with CNET News that we could expect the depth-sensing camera to be available in a little over a year.
© 2009, DailyTech
cmoffatt
4 months ago
20 comments
Will this be a new era, maybe goodbye mouse... ? Sounds good to me!!! Face recognition, possible auto Tagging, smart computing taking to another level. Call your PC to tell it to unlock the door if a certain person comes, and a new era in hacking.. wow.. this will be fun...
jmotley
4 months ago
10 comments
Cool as hell but I'm seeing a lot of broken items in the house.
JoeBuddha
4 months ago
6 comments
Of course, you could always use a Nerf bat...
Tech_Insider
4 months ago
132 comments
Ohhh...that's a good idea. Is it possible to insure household items from damage while using a bat or a tennis racket inside of a house. Mom always said...."don't swing a bat inside the house." :)