Slashdot Mirror
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.
I hope they make it have fine enough resolution it will work for challenged people.
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.
someone talking to themselves walking down the street would have been considered insane or on drugs
now, they just have a bluetooth headset on and are perfectly normal
today, someone sitting alone in the park making random jerky gestures would be someone on drugs, or insane
in 5 years, that's just someone using their kinect-enabled laptop
it's all part of technology's goal of virtualizing the experience of tourette syndrome and schizophrenia for us all
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What really has me excited about Windows 8 is Kinect. I think we're going to see a big transformation in the landscape of user interface in the next several years pushing us towards device-less interfaces.
Yeah, we're all going to create Excel spreadsheets by randomly waving our hands in front of the screen.
What really has me excited about Windows 8 is Kinect. I think we're going to see a big transformation in the landscape of user interface in the next several years pushing us towards device-less interfaces.
Granted, this stuff isn't a replacement, it's a supplement. So don't think I'm preaching the death of touch or mouse and keyboard. The more options of well developed and useful interfaces we have the better.
I think device-less interface make sense for hand held computers, and less and less sense as you scale up the size of the computer.
Contrary to the scenes in CSI-Miami, flinging things around a huge table sensor is not particularly useful or efficient. Nor is reaching across your keyboard to move or select some object by dragging it across your 24 inch screen.
Even on a level of effort basis, waiving hands and fingers around in the air is pretty much a non-starter. (Not to be too George Jetson here...).
Then there is the on/off problem. Were you gesticulating while talking to your work-mate, or editing paragraphs on the page? Mice do nothing much unless you click.
The mouse still rules, and even the Wacom Bamboo line of touch/pen input devices are clumsy approximations.
Mice cost anywhere from 2 to 40 dollars, are amazingly precise, and by now, fully intuitive across all platforms.
If QWERTY can last from 1878 to the present, something far more elegant like the mouse is going to have a very long life.
Kinect will probably remain for games, and maybe music (performance, not listening), and the air guitar is going to become a REAL instrument.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Bang Skull On Desk?
Have gnu, will travel.
Some people were complaining about Siri, saying that for some reason they didn't want to be seen out in public, talking on... a phone.
Well I'd take that over being out in public with my mobile device looking like I was being attacked by an invisible cloud of bees.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What do you need the other hand for? Grabbing your partner's cock?
A strange inference from my post. Let me try do the same with your post.
You cannot understand what a 2nd hand could be used for, and your seemingly first thought is that it must be used for another man's cock.
There are several possibilities that are floating around in my head right now and let me take a whack at drawing inferences from your post as well.....
1) You are dealing with latent homosexual urges as evidenced by your apparent obsession with grabbing another man's cock.
2) You don't often have partners, because if you did, you would realize that there are 4 hands present and several orifices with the additional person. Cirque Du Soleil abilities aside, your own orifices are irrelevant. Only a single hand is required from either party to work the remote/mouse.
3) You are prepubescent and/or possessing of a small penis. Therefore it would never occur to you that an additional hand might be useful or desired.
4) You have at least one unusually large hand, and again, it would never occur to you that an additional hand would be needed.
Living in the post Atomic Age might cause one to conclude #4 to be correct, but statistically speaking, such mutations are very rare. #2 is certainly possible because this is Slashdot with the ever present stereotype that we are all in our mother's basements awaiting the delivery of Hot Pockets and Mountain Dew. #2 is also possible because the lack of logic and creativity with some people here never ceases to surprise me. #1 could be due to simple anonymous asshole syndrome, which is best explained by the Penny Arcade's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.
Hmmmmm.....
I will have to go with #3. You must have a tiny little penis. Do not lament your tiny penis my anonymous friend, because it is not the size that matters but how well you can convince somebody other than yourself to touch it.
These parting words I offer you as comfort.