Monday, June 7, 2010 at 10:56AM There's a bunch of companies working with 3D cameras and gesture/anatomy analysis, including of course Microsoft's Natal. Control of TVs with this technology seems the first best fit.
Monday, January 11, 2010 at 12:27PM I've been following Microsoft's Project Natal for a while now. Here's a video update — note the impressive 3D images coming in from the camera at 1:14.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 11:49AM UPDATE: Added the Reactable (thanks Vincent!)
What Shall We Do with a Multitouch Table,
What Shall We Do with a Multitouch Table,
What Shall We Do with a Multitouch Table,
Early in the morning.
I've been investigating making a multitouch table for research purposes. Some googling lead me to Georg Kaindl's fantasitc, free, touché software for OS X built to integrate with home made optical multi-touch tables (video above). This software, in combination with some detailed instructions on how to build a laser-driven multi-touch table has inspired me to think about the possibilities. It seems pretty doable.
Here is an example of a touch table based on Open source software. This kind of interface lets many users interact simultaneously. I like the round form-factor of this example.
Here's the expensive Microsoft version, 'Surface' being covered by mainstream news. Could make for a nice, if not expensive, coffee table.
The cool Reactable.
But here's the question: what would you do with a multitouch table?
Saturday, June 13, 2009 at 11:39AM Project Natal has become an unfolding story on this blog. Johnny Chung Lee, the man behind the Wiimote head tracking hack which I've emulated before, has announced on his blog that he's now working with the Microsoft Project Natal team to take the system from demo stage to finished 3D gaming product.
Critisicsm on the web has been in the lines of "I don't want to wave my arms around to control my computer". And rightly so — I agree that this is a limited niche. However. Digital cameras, in a short decade or so have replaced analogue cameras due to their lowering cost, increasing pixel density and capture quality. In the same way, I envision this 3D technology quickly becoming cheap, high-quality and mainstream. Looking forward, this technology could be embedded into display screens itself. This would allow a touchscreen to obtain 'mouseover' information as well as improved touch information. It would also allow for more human gestures, performed over (but not touching) the flat input device, to activate occasionally needed actions.
For example:
To learn more, watch this 2006 Google tech talk explaining (what I believe is) similar technology. This is the first time I saw this technology, and their more long range version is impressive stuff. You need to scan forward about 20mins to get to the interesting stuff.
The video above shows some scenes which give you a sense of the 3D camera's data might be providing. This still image shows you the 3D data the Natal system may be receiving. However, turning this bunch of pixels into a reasonably accurate model of the human body is, as Johnny points out, really amazing.
Friday, June 12, 2009 at 10:44AM My previous post on Microsoft's 3D system gaming system 'Natal' questioned the 3D system's latency. In this fresh real-world demo on the Jimmy Fallon TV show, Kudo specifically aimed to demonstrate the 'low latency' of the system. I'm not sure if the red jumpsuits were related to demoing the system, but the system seemed very robust, and responsive enough for fun gaming. I think Microsoft has a winner here.
UPDATE: Via Engadget Apparently the red "suits were just for fun" UPDATE 2: Video got pulled down, sadly. I'm trying to find a replacement to embed.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009 at 1:36PM Sony today demoed their upcoming Playstation 3D controller, which integrates with their existing video interface, EyeToy. Fast forward past the uncomfortable engineers introduction, and you'll find an impressively accurate and subtle prototype game controller demo. I particularly like the merging of real-life video and computer generated tools/weapons.
Technically speaking, I'm guessing Sony's new controller uses refined version of existing technologies including image-tracking of the round wand-top, Wii-like accelerometers and potentially 3D radio telemetry. At at guess, the slightly-dorky sphere helps Eyetoy differentiate between wands, and the wands from the background by a imperceptible synchronized flicker. What I do like about this type of system is it's low-latency and high precision, which according to the video is "sub millimeter". What I don't like about the system is that it still needs to makes guesses about how you're holding the device, and so your avatar/character may not be displayed to match.
Doubtless, the Wii is fast-tracking all games companies' 3D research and designs — but in different directions. Wouldn't it be great if the above technologies were combined with 3Dcamera technology as displayed by Microsoft? Low resolution, but comprehensive 3D imaging will be provided by the camera, with high resolution and low-latency data being provided by the controller. On the other hand, given Moore's Law, we may soon see 3D cameras approaching current 2D camera resolution. High resolution 3D data, in conjunction with sub-millisecond parallel processing Xbox/PlayStation/OpenCL computational power might match the data quality these current controllers provide. Richer input (squeeze) and haptic feedback (sharp knocks as swords collide) might be physical controller's saving graces.
3D, Controller, eyetoy, future, microsoft, playstation, sony in News Tuesday, June 2, 2009 at 12:27PM 
Microsoft has announced at this years E3 Games conference a new peripheral/system coming next year for the XBox called 'Natal'. They've got some slick prototypes/ studio mockups which show people interacting with games and other applications in a very convincing manner. The technology is based on 3D camera technology which I've previously discussed, and it's good to see it coming to the fore. Microsoft certainly thinks it's a big deal, pulling out Spielberg and Peter Molyneux to talk up the future.
The promotional material implies that they've got some extra processing turning 3D camera bitmap images into models of the human body to be passed to the game itself. Perhaps this processing is the source of the lag between the person and the on-screen action in the video on this page, which I'm guessing is a real prototype. And too much lag and you end up with a cognitively tiring game. The system also boasts speech recognition — I'm skeptical on how effective that will be you're yelling at the screen. Overall, this new 3D system promises awesome new interaction possibilities, but given the huge hype, expect some post-natal depression if it doesn't meet expectations.
UPDATE: Natal now has a website.
Friday, May 15, 2009 at 9:55AM BBC coverage on the Microsoft Future Home, a mockup of what future living with Microsoft 24/7 might be like.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 at 10:48PM I stumbled across the following series by Robert Cringely, which represents a fairly good overview of personal computing history from the Altair, the Alto, Apple I, II and Mac, IBM PC, OS/2, and the various shades of Windows. It was made in 1996, when Apple was looking like a goner.
Ignoring the pink polo shirts, quite a good series on some of the strategic moves which made the industry what it is today.
apple, history, innovation, microsoft in Video