Natal Technology a Gift To the Disabled, Amputees

SlappingOysters writes "Natal could be capable of a lot more than was originally thought. Gameplayer has some information about how the technology will function in multiplayer, and goes on to reveal how it is intelligent enough to give full-bodied virtual movement to disabled gamers. The site had previously revealed that the Natal dev kits have been with developers for a couple of months, suggesting that the device may not be as far off as has been suggested by some media outlets."

Comments

Nice article, Eddie Bernays.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anthropomorphization is an excellent propaganda technique, vaporware astroturfer.

I'll believe it when I see it

[QuantumG]

More likely the game will refuse to move your virtual arm/leg just as your disabled body does.

In other words: Microsoft's Natal Adds Insult To Injury.

Possibly, but unlikely

[Zerth]

Much like most game companies never bother to consider color blindness when picking their display schemes, very few will consider the disabled for motion control. Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri got a nice patch for that, though.

And you probably know how many console games still force one layout or give you a few presets, despite it being relatively trivial to remap controllers these days. I imagine even fewer will allow you to change "swing your arm" to "twitch your nose" after spending weeks training the gesture recognition for arm movements.

Re:Possibly, but unlikely

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Tell that to the guy who has to interpret two different display colors at 2am on a generator status panel that appear to be the same temper of gray to him. (Real situation, fixed by some 2 cent cellophane)

So apparently, your company's special accommodation for its employee's disability is a candy wrapper and a bit of sticky tape. You prove my point.

My boss is partially color blind, and it's been an experience trying to rework monitoring systems / internal UI's so he can gain the same meaning from a display that everyone else can. You just don't think about things like that when it doesn't affect you

Fair enough. But is your boss able to drive? Does he need adaptations in his house? does he need a disabled parking placard because he can't walk far? Does he need nursing care? I guess not. He just needed a more convenient UI for himself.

I guess in the end it comes down to what can be considered a disability or not. For instance, I can't feel half of my right hand because of an accident I had years ago. As a result, I keep dropping things, hurting myself, etc... but I don't consider myself disabled: I just wear a glove with a sticky rubber palm side when I work on delicate parts, a fireproof glove when I heat things up, and a "chain mail" glove (they are sold at scuba diving stores, for diving with sharks) when I work with tools that drill or cut and I need to hold the part by hand. I suppose I could have asked my boss to pay for them, but that's a bit much don't you think?

This is bad???

[Brianech]

For such a positive article, there are nothing but negative comments... Its good to see that technology made for gaming can in turn be used to help the disabled. For all the bad press games/gamers get, there is now something really promising that we can say came from gaming. Natal, if it turns out as well as they claim it will, is a impressive piece of technology. To reach a broad audience it will have to be affordable. Makes you wonder what the comments would be like had Sony, Apple, IBM or any other company for that matter had created it.

Points to gameplayer

[interkin3tic]

TFA has a picture of adult hands holding a tiny premature baby, with the caption

Where we're going, we don't need hands

There's something disturbing about not only the caption by itself, but the combination that is brilliant.