natal continues to amaze and scare me
by Phil on Apr.22, 2010, under games, tech
Microsoft’s 3D motion capture system for the Xbox 360, called Project Natal, continues to amaze and scare me with the potential it has to make your living room activities more interactive, and more public. Take for example, the post “In The Xbox Future, Your TV Will Know If You Are Yelling, Booing” over at Kotaku, wherein they highlight an angry sports fan interacting with a sporting event:
Imagine a sporting event — Natal could know which team you’re for because it sees your jersey, or knows you thought a bad call was made when you yell ‘boo.’ It learns about you and gets smarter to create a more tailored entertainment experience.
The sporting events/their broadcasters could theoretically partner with Microsoft and collect this sort of information live, and display it during breaks in the event. For example, it could show the precent of Natal viewers who also thought that call was bad, or how many Natal viewers are cheering for the same team as you, and how many are cheering for the opposite team.
This kind of new interaction amazes me, but also scares me. I find it really eerie how close this situation is to a 1984-esque world, in which your TV watches you just as much as you watch it. Regardless, the technology is very exciting, and applications like this one will continue to catch my interest.
Let me know your thoughts on this kind of living room interaction in the comments!
April 22nd, 2010 on 7:55 pm
So by ‘thought the call was bad’ do you mean Natal will show the % of viewers who flipped off and/or yelled obscenities at the ref?
April 22nd, 2010 on 8:36 pm
More or less. It sounds a bit ridiculous when you word it that way, but essentially yes. Natal could potentially detect any “disatisfaction” and relay it to some interested party, like the broadcaster.
Think about how many times we boo Yves Lavigne, it’d be pretty entertaining to find out that 99% of Natal viewers who’re watching at the same time also think he sucks.
April 22nd, 2010 on 8:42 pm
Except the statistic would clearly be that 100% of viewers think Yves Lavigne sucks.
April 24th, 2010 on 8:27 am
You have to account for the drunk guys who’re just so drunk they cheer for anything. That’s where the 1% comes from
. Stupid Yves Lavigne.