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What Kinect Could Be, But Probably Won't
An opinion piece at CNN looks at Microsoft's Xbox Kinect, praising the system's capabilities not for gaming, but for what it does to the video viewing experience. "The idea of being able to ditch your table full of remote controls and just use your hands and voice to interact with the TV is compelling. It's much nicer than QWERTY keyboards, which are a terrible idea in the living room. It's also better than Wii-like remote controls, or even using an iPad or smartphone as your TV remote, a feature that cable companies are increasingly rolling out." The problem, as they see it, is Microsoft's inability to actually bring this into common usage for regular television viewing. "It seems like the company is tied too much to the Xbox's substantial gaming revenue to split the Xbox TV stuff off as a separate product — even though there's a huge population of non-gamers who probably have no interest in buying an Xbox." Perhaps this is something that can be addressed by others when the Kinect SDK is released.
...that Microsoft comes up with something very cool on its own (i.e., without buying someone else's product and rebranding it), they have this frustrating tendency to screw it up with unimaginative business practices. In this instance, I give it at most two years before someone comes out with a similar product that will immediately charge to the lead in the market. At that point, Microsoft will try to catch up and that's what they'll be doing all the way up to the point where they discontinue the product. Their reliance on product limitations as a business practice may have helped them in the early years, but it's been a long time since it's been of any benefit.
I'm not a fan of Microsoft (though they make THE best keyboard with their Natural Ergonomic 4000), but I can only think that this is seriously frustrating for people who work there.
Omnes tuae crepidines sunt nobis sunt. Ascendo tuum!
How would the Kinect be used as a TV remote replacment? Swipe left for down channel, right for next? Up for volume up and down for volume down? Ok now I want to jump from channel 34 to 21, what swipe gesture would I use for that? How about channel info? Will there be Kinect gesture classes in our children's school years? I hear people talking about the Kinect like its the second coming but other then specific problems that could be addresed by it for the most part its the child like idea of of having a Minority Report interface that has people excited.
Not to be a party-pooper, because different interfaces should be explored, of course, but for day to day usage I could, on principle, not justify using a TV remote that draws 12 watts.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
I think that there is a reason that this guy is writing opinion pieces for CNN, rather than actual strategies:
Microsoft's "unwillingness" to split off some sort of 'xbox TV' thing: So, the kinect is a ~$100-$120 device(and Microsoft is apparently not making a loss; but not trying to mar a launch by gouging). On top of that, it needs a host device to run the body-detection stuff. So, you might be able to do an 'xbox TV' for a bit less than a base-model xbox SKU+Kinect, by going with a weaker CPU and no GPU; but such a device would still cost much more than a universal remote and not so much less than the base model xbox that it could really differentiate itself.
"Table full of remotes": Y'know why you have so many remotes? Because you have a zillion sucky little set-top-boxes that require more fiddling than joe user is willing to devote to the problem to get working together nicely. Guess what problem your 'xbox TV', no matter how magical the input experience, won't solve? Oh, yeah, that one. Consumer video is a mess, with endless fast-replaced devices, minimal control standardization(and what standardization there is, as with HDMI CEC or Cablecard, is either a few rounds short of fully baked or a failure by design), and some fairly entrenched players who have absolutely no intention of being shoved out of the way so that you can use the box you want to, rather than Scientific Atlanta's latest sick effort. That is the hard part.
In commercials you always see how some ordinary thing is so very difficult and cubersome to do. You know... "Vacuuming under the sofa is so hard and the vacuum cleaner doesn't fit there well and you have to (*gasp*) kneel down and it still won't be perfectly clean... But if you buy Super Cleaner (TM) RIGHT NOW you'll...". At that point, every regular person should go "Excuse me? I've vacuumed under the sofa and it's not that difficult, really". The commercials are trying to create a need that doesn't exists because there is a product that has been designed to fulfill that need. This sounds similar.
The reason why it's difficult to come up with a replacement for a remote is that there isn't any real need for that. Are the remotes really that hard to use? You pick one up. lay on the sofa and can do anything with a small finger gesture. I don't understand why they're trying to create need for a replacement with those very artificial sounding arguments. "It's hard to pick up the right remote"? Oh please...
"What the Kinect Could Be, But Probably Won't" -- Been there done that -- TFA should be called, "What Kinect & LIRC hackers have realized is really lame way to control a TV or computer."
The article says a qwerty keyboard in the living room is a bad idea, without explaining why. So, why?
Thanks.
Because Dvorak is so much nicer.
On a serious note, I don't see keyboards going away any time soon (or ever). I can type almost as fast as I think and 8 times as fast as I can get my voice recognition software to recognize.
What I am seeing more of is Computers. Everywhere. In portable phone & tablet form factors, as mp3 players, as game consoles, set-top boxes and routers... Even in the dash of some cars.
Once we realize that TVs are just big computer screens, and a general purpose "desktop" computer can perform all the tasks that we currently use the set-top boxes for, it won't seem too strange to just use your keyboard in the living room. Google TV already does this... For typing in a search or composing text/emails, nothing beats a keyboard. If I'm near my computer, I use it to send text messages.
Hell, I even have a wireless USB keyboard hooked up to my XBox360 -- It's much quicker/nicer than the overpriced controller mounted keyboard.
We'll always need a pointing device -- I prefer a Wacom pen-tablet/mouse pad, but I could see a Kinect filling this role. In fact, I've used my Kinect to control the mouse pointer, but the CPU usage is ridiculous when you consider how little my Wacom uses and how much more precise it is.
As for Kinect controlling the TV -- Well, I've done that. It wasn't that hard. I've been using LIRC to control my TV with Linux for quite some time. Linking LIRC to a gesture recognizer (libFreenect + OpenCV) was a piece of cake, but not really worth it. The Kinect is far less efficient and precise than either my truly universal remote (which I use to control both the TV & computer with via LIRC), or a simple keyboard / mouse combo. Seriously though -- WAY too much CPU consumption when you consider how little an IR remote, keyboard or mouse/pen tablet consumes...
Microphone in the kinect. Just speak "channel 34" or, even better, "CNN sports".
Any further questions?
I don't know what's the most ridiculous; The headline (since when is "what could be but probably won't" news?), the fact that these news start with "An opinion piece at CNN" (opinion /= news) or that the whole idea is so utterly stupid that I can't help but facepalm (which would probably entice Kinect to delete the channel or something).
Next up: Some guy on the street says cars could run on liquid gold soon but probably won't. In his opinion car manufacturers could produce cars running on gold for 5$ less than the average gas-guzzling car and thus eliminate the demand for oil.
Ridiculous. Google TV is just a PC. It's obvious people don't want a PC in their living room. It's obvious Google can't design its way out of a paper bag. It's obvious Google has no idea how to make a consumer product. Google TV did not sell. More people buy an Apple TV every week than all the Google TV units that have been sold in its lifetime. For the price of a Google TV, you can get an Apple TV and an iPod touch to use as remote and for apps. Then you can look something up on the Web or tweet without taking over the TV screen and destroying the experience for the people you're watching TV with, which Google TV forgot all about since it is built for lonely nerds. Adding a Kinect only makes Google TV that much more expensive and makes the whole idea even crazier.
You'll never be able to watch that Top Gun disk ...
... bzzzt disk ejected.
"EJECT EJECT EJECT"
And you'll never be able to finish Casablanca: ... player loops back to scene 1
"Play it again"
And no police action dramas. ..
"Police! Stop!" click
And Ah-nold will just endlessly loop ...
"I'll be back" loops to previous scene
And forget about "Spaceballs" ... wrong password - device locked!
"password is 1 2 3 4 5"
And all those westerns ...
... paused
Hold it right there
And all your porn will be reduced to 20 seconds .. 2x
.. 4x
.. 8x
.. 16x
.. 32x
.. 64x .
.. plaid .
Faster!
Faster!
Faster!
Faster!
Faster!
Faster!
Faster!