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Microsoft at CES 2010 - Project Natal
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Time hails Natal as invention of 2009 News
Xbox 360 News by Robert Purchese
Time.com has put forward Project Natal as one of The 50 Best Inventions of 2009.
The online arm of the famous US magazine said traditional controllers have stood as a "barrier between gamers and total Tron-like immersion" since the invention of Pong.
"This year Microsoft demonstrated a technology codenamed Project Natal that enables players to control games using only body movements and voice commands, no controller required - the gamer's body becomes the controller.
"Project Natal uses several cameras, plus a highly specialized microphone and a lot of fancy software, to track the gamer's body and interpret his or her voice. You move your hand, and the Master Chief (or whoever) moves his hand. It's that simple. And that cool," stated the post.
Natal shared the Time-light with such inventions as The Eyeborg, The Newest Cloud, The Edible Racing Car, Wooden Bones and Vertical Farming, to name a few.
The full list can be found on the Time website.
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Poster
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+8
I find it hard to consider Natal an 'invention' insofar as it's an extension of the concepts we'd had for years (motion tracking and voice recognition). if Natal is an invention then every new car engine is an 'invention'. It's not 'inventive', it's a refinement. Assuming it actually exists as anything other than a prototype.
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Mentalist(air)
13/11/09 @ 09:58
+3
That's a bit premature, eh?
Edit: Although is is three places below a new type of farmed fish: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packag...
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 13/11/09 @ 10:05
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+3
That is rather awesome... than an electronic gizmo that helps people shoot more digital Nazis is ranked above an AIDS vaccine.
Anyway, screw all of that. Robo-Penguin! http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,... |
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Mentalist(air)
13/11/09 @ 10:12
+6
That's a bit premature, eh?
Actually, reading the list, Natal is no more premature than most of the other things. It would appear to b the "Most interesting sounding unproven ideas of 2009" lst. Good call on the robot penguin, though, those little fellas are the collest thing ever. |
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+5
"So we have teleportation now?"
Yeah, but it's the crap quantum kind which is only good for telling you if someone has spun your entangled electron the other way, not the cool Star Trek kind. "you see? Cross enough palms with silver or gold and you get results.." Absolutely. Although I'd have assumed the Microsoft Engineering and R&D departments would be probably be paid in dollars (or maybe Quatloos) instead.
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 13/11/09 @ 10:28
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EarlBassett
13/11/09 @ 10:21
+10
Tony Hawk is going to be annoyed his skateboard peripheral isn't on that list
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Bigglesworth
13/11/09 @ 10:22
+2
Wow. Well I guess now we know what all those Windows 7 pre-orders have been funneled into.
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+3
If it lives up to the promise then great, else Time magazine are going to look a bit daft.
The problem is that its success and effectiveness as a piece of technology is heavily reliant on a decent amount of high quality supporting software. This doesn't really exist apart from Milo and I think it's dangerous to base a judgement on what was a very controlled tech demo. I've seen a lot of software, for example behavioural based animation authoring, that look excellent within the parameters of a demo scenario but fail to translate that quality and usability in real-world applications. In summary, I really hope it is everything that is promised. But personally I'd exercise a bit more caution in proclaiming it to the the best thing since sliced bread. |
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Doctor_What
13/11/09 @ 10:34
+1
@ Teabagger : Exactly - the people in this thread (and at Time) who are proclaiming this to be the second coming for games are jumping the gun a lot. I've not seen anything to suggest it's going to keep me more interested in the long term than the PS2's Eyetoy or the Wiimote. There's more potential, yes, but there are also still significant problems with controller-free games that I haven't seen any solutions for yet. It's going to be a more interesting year thanks to MS, but I don't think it's the revolution quite yet.
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Mentalist(air)
13/11/09 @ 10:39
+2
What Natal or the AIDS vaccine ?
Both, as it happens. Neither are complete and fully available. |
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kangarootoo
13/11/09 @ 10:56
+10
Yet another mainsteam journalist, with little knowledge of the full variety of technolgies and ideas that already exist within the field being observed, sees something flashy and mistakenly believes they are seeing something unique both in concept and implementation.
The implementation of Natal sounds like it is pushing barriers, but the concept described (that enables players to control games using only body movements and voice commands, no controller required - the gamer's body becomes the controller) is not new. This journalist obviously believes it is new, which is poor journalism. |
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metalangel
13/11/09 @ 10:57
+3
Time's... er... time as a reputable news source passed a long time ago... I remember about 1997ish it stopped being a good read and went all touchy-feely-internetty and full of fanciful crap like this. It was about that... heh... time that my family's long-running subscription was cancelled.
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Moribundman
13/11/09 @ 11:18
0
What about the iPet and the Sony dildo? ;-)
It's a toss up between which is creepiest: Kids playing with invisible animals that can only be seen in their TV, or (as Charlie Brooker put it) the "virtual grooming" game that Lionhead are working on... |
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designerheadache
13/11/09 @ 11:20
0
sigh, so many things that in the greater scheme of things are way more important than gaming. And this is coming from a long time gamer.
Aids vaccine, teleportation and others on the list are all major changing things Natal, esentially still involves flapping your arms around infront of the telly, not exactly the top thing on my list for sure! |
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+1
Natal is a great concept for marketing.
Wether it's useful for actual games remains to be seen. The Wiimote and the Sixaxis fall in this cathegory, at least - great for the commercials, but rather worthless (in the long run) for actual gameplay. I prefer a comfortable, accurate controller to imprecise "Innovation". However, I realize that "soccer mums" se things differently, they want theor kids to bounce around all the time, and that is why Wii Fit is selling crazy numbers. It's all in the marketing. Natal will be backed up by massive marketing, and will sell very well. For me, as a gamer, it is pretty meh, tho. No doubt Natal will be followed by a reinvention of those immersive 3D glasses the "Virtual Reality" folks tried to flog us in the early 90ies. |
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Mentalist(air)
13/11/09 @ 13:05
+1
Didn't MS just buy out the ppl who invented this?
According to Microsoft, they developed their one, but then bought up a company who happened to have developed something very similar because they had patents which Natal would otherwise have infringed. |
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-1
Natal doesn't even exist yet, either Time are trying to sell more copies by tapping into the Xbox crowd, or MS bribed its way in. There's no possibility it earned its place, because there's nothing there to earn anything. Unless the Portal gun made its way into 2007s list then something funny is going on.
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EvilBob_leeds
13/11/09 @ 13:07
+3
Voice regconition has been around for donkeys years, and has been getting incrementally better all the time. But accurately transposing what people say isn't really the problem - it's parsing the text into a meaningful format, with all the pronouns correctly converted into the objects they represent and being sufficiently tolerant of poor grammar and reigonal turns of phrase. And that's not what Natal does, afaik. For speech commands to become workable, outside of very simple "go to checkpoint 2, fire" style commands we've got a very long way to go.
As others have said, if MS force Natal on developers, you're going to get sucky shovelware, but if they give the developers the scope to use it, and let them implement it where appropriate its got the potential to be a good addition to gaming.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 13/11/09 @ 13:07
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Mentalist(air)
13/11/09 @ 13:33
+2
People are taking this all very seriously. Let me abridge this list for you:
1 - Woo spaceship! 2 - Save the Bluefin tuna! 3 - Woo Fairy Lights! 4 - Woo central heating (?!) 5 - Woo gaming with no pads or wands! 6 - Beam me up, Scotty! 7 - Woo pretty space pictures! 8 - Woo no more AIDS! 9 - Woo puerile use for brain hat! 10 - Woo, eyes like Geordie Laforge's out of First Contact and that when he got rid of his VISOR. ... 22 - Woo playing god to pander to pedigree dog enthusiasts! ... 26 - ROBO PENGUIN WILL KILL US ALL ... 48 - hang on, have't there been 3D cameras since the late 19th century? They haven't thought very hard about this. |
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