Why Project Natal is so last year
The gaming world is full of talk about Microsoft's new gaming add-on for the Xbox 360. Codenamed , it uses a special optical camera and 3D sensor to read your body movements so that you can play games without even touching a controller. Imagine a football game where you kick at the screen to take a shot.
But, as ever, the disability world has been one step ahead in using this kind of technology ... one example is the SoundBeam, a device that uses a series of ultrasonic sensors to translate free movements into music. It's an instrument popular with people with learning disabilities and limited movement (), whose fans include electro outfit , a band we recently featured on the Ouch Talk Show podcast.
So whilst it seems we're already ahead of the game, building this kind of technology into a cheap and widely available gaming accessory should lead to many more cool and widespread applications. Just look at to get an idea of what's to come ...
Comment number 1.
At 4th Jun 2009, hackerjack wrote:The technology of the motion sensor cameras may be the same but the difference is the algorithms behind it that can now interpret that movement and react to it on somethign more useful than assigning noises to 3D space. That is the new stuff.
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