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Some Windows 8 Laptops May Come With Built-In Kinect Sensors
An anonymous reader writes to point out reports that Asus is "working on a new laptop that will include Kinect gestures and will be compatible with Windows 8," and adds, "What does this mean for the consumer? Portable gestures in Windows 8!" Wired has an article based on the same report, which mentions also the prospect of devices incorporating alternative gesture-tracking software from SoftKinectic and others.
Kinect in the living room makes sense - voice/gesture commands in place of a remote control is surprisingly useful (when it works). On a laptop though -- what does the Kinect give that a touch screen can't do better? I mean outside of adult entertainment...
On the other hand, if it can support gestures with your eyes, then it might be useful. For example, gaze at a specific window/monitor and having it automatically come into focus could be quite a convenience ... but I don't think we'll see that for a while.
You know I was confused for a moment because I work with "challenged" people all the time, until I realized you might have meant physically challenged people.
Seriously though, how is extra resolution on the kinect sensor going to help physically challenged people? I know some people that have challenges like that and I don't see how extra resolution is going to help with recognizing their hand gestures. I would think that training the software would be far more effective and required because each challenged person is going to have different "quirks" to their movements that need to be learned.
Having that sensor alone as a standard on laptops going forward, regardless of resolutions, seems to open the doors for software to help all sorts of people interact with their computers more effectively and easily.
Of course, ironically, one of the last articles had a poster with ALS being lambasted because he did not take the time to cut and paste from his blog instead of just linking to it. The Jerk! I know right? Would extra resolution help with somebody like Stephen Hawking to recognize facial twitches reliably?