Well this was inevitable: just spotted at the CES consumer electronics show by a source for TechCrunch, "Avatar Kinect", as the name suggests, will likely be a way for Xbox owners to interact with each other as avatars in a virtual space. Or as TechCrunch's John Biggs puts it acerbically, "Second-Life-like thrills through your Xbox... Do I really want to see my friends dressed up in gaucho hats and zombie masks and then discuss the days events? Have we learned nothing from Second Life?" Why yes, John. We learned that 3D worlds foster extremely deep online interaction, but that too many barriers to entry have kept most of the population away. But as Mitch Kapor told me way back when Kinect was called Natal and Kapor was funding an early predecessor of Kinect, in the future of virtual worlds, "The interaction metaphor is not going to be a mouse and keyboard." I bet if Microsoft made it possible for Kinect-driven users to dance with each other as avatars, we'd see massive embrace of the medium. Keep watching for updates, the 3D innovation is getting hard to keep up with. Image credit: CrunchGear
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Depends on your dance style personally I still think people will use mo cap huds do we really want to visit a club where people dance like real people! And boy so tiring....
Posted by: Paisley Beebe | Tuesday, January 04, 2011 at 05:13 PM
@Paisley...that could open up a whole new employment sector, teaching people to dance virtually...Arthur Murray Avatar Dance Studio.
People seem to like the physical aspect of Wii, maybe the exertion of dancing could be a selling point with the machine translating a bit of physical motion into a more graceful appearance on the screen.
Couldn't be any worse than someone break dancing to a slow tune....or the musician's patter between songs...or an unsynched couple's dance.
Posted by: Corcosman Voom | Wednesday, January 05, 2011 at 05:09 AM
I would have said "without Second-Life-like thrills". This seems to have little in common with Second Life, IMO.
Posted by: Tateru Nino | Wednesday, January 05, 2011 at 06:58 PM
In its current incarnation, Kinect is not much use unless you have a lot of space. You need to be at least six feet from the sensor (preferably eight feet) for it to work. Even then, trying click on an icon involves waving at the sensor...failing..trying various kinds of waves at various speeds until it recognizes you..watching the hand drift over..oops, lost it, try again...Like I said, dramatic improvements will be needed, because right now trying to build using this would be ten times more frustrating than good old-fashioned keyboard or mouse.
I suspect that multi-touch screens like Jeff Han's (see it demoed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcKqyn-gUbY) would be the best way to use online worlds in most cases, with kinect-like capabilities relegated to the occasional gimick.
Posted by: Extropia DaSilva | Thursday, January 06, 2011 at 02:31 AM
If you're implementing couples dancing with a motion controller interface, my advice is this:
Don't dip.
Posted by: Arcadia Codesmith | Thursday, January 06, 2011 at 08:49 AM
Have we done the Snowglobe webcam thing here: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SNOW-820?
Posted by: Graham Mills | Thursday, January 06, 2011 at 09:47 AM