Well 2010 (pronounced “twenty ten”) has rolled around and now I can say that this year Project Natal will be coming out for the Xbox 360. WOOHOO!!
So with the impending release of Natal for the Xbox 360 this year I have been thinking about this device some what and here are some predictions I have about the device…
Natal will be for the Xbox 360 and for Windows. Project Natal is probably going to be a USB device (see cable from the device below) as this would be the most convenient way to provide power and data to the camera/microphone array. Now granted this might be a wireless device for the Xbox 360 like the standard controllers and that cable might be a power lead but if this is true you could still connect it to a PC via the USB Xbox 360 Wireless receiver.
So if you can connect the Natal to a PC this would be a way of providing 3D motion capture, facial recognition, voice recognition using the cameras and acoustic source localization and ambient noise suppression via its microphones. These sorts of capabilities would greatly help Microsoft implement NUI interface to Windows like the Microsoft Office Labs 2019 Video that was released early last year… See about 1 minute 30 seconds.
So imagine being able to sit down at your computer and have it recognise to who you are and log you on with you face and a voice print identification then use your hand to move around and organise the windows on your screen…. The future is here (soon)…
My other prediction for Project Natal is that it will enable new gaming titles such as Dance Hero which could be done via a full body motion capture dance. This is something that has been done before but it does away with the tacky floor pads (see image below) that were previously needed to make this work.
