http://www.xbox.com/en-gb/e309/default.htm

...OMG with Steve Speilberg!

Whahaha

Wiiiiiiiiiiii eat your hart out!

I would love to see this integrated into Windows Media Center,.. Where's the remote dammit!

This thing is amazing. I'm seeing a lot of hate for motion control games, like the ones where you kick a virtual ball by kicking your non-virtual leg, but this goes so far beyond that. The Milo thing was just bizarre.

Maddus Mattus said:

I wonder how they will implement force feedback?

An air pressure cannon will shoot a blast of air into your face.

I guess that'll be the next-gen version.

Bas said:

Maddus Mattus said:

*snip*

An air pressure cannon will shoot a blast of air into your face.

I guess that'll be the next-gen version.

Air pressure, water canon, flame thrower and electrical shocks!

Man I want that!

jason818_253.33 said:

"Milo" seems to be an interesting step in the AI direction. Maybe they should have named the kid Hal.

Milo look amazing, but also amazingly creepy. I really wonder how that 'pass a real life drawing into the game world' thing will work in practice.

http://www.bing.com/search?q=project+natal+xbox&form=QBRE&filt=all

But now everyone is eating the words. Microsoft just layed the smack down on the Wii, holy s**t.

This is one huge step towards total virtual reality. And I thought it died in the 90s. And not VR in computer science academic departments, VR might be a thing for consumers now. I might have to hack this thing and make it work on PCs.

Bass said:

Everyone thought this would be a cheap copy of the Wiimote like Avatars were pretty much of Miis. (Let's be honest here)

But now everyone is eating the words. Microsoft just layed the smack down on the Wii, holy s**t.

This is one huge step towards total virtual reality. And I thought it died in the 90s. And not VR in computer science academic departments, VR might be a thing for consumers now. I might have to hack this thing and make it work on PCs.

Yeah, this blows the whole lame avatar thing out of the water. I'll even excuse them for their annoyingly happy and excited faces showing up in a few Natal demos.

Dan said:

Our Coding4Fun team was exchanging emails on this as it would be amazing to make hackable like the Wiimote control Brian Peek had done a while back. I've emailed the XNA team to see if there's a dev story there, but it would be awesome if there was so you can build Windows apps/games with this too

I'll reserve judgement until I see this thing in action for real. Although the demo looks very cool.

Ultimately, this is a web cam (maybe 2 for 3D info) and I've seen those logitec web cam games in the past, and they were rather limited. Will the Xbox make good use of the technology?

MSR did show off some pretty cool cam demo in the past, though, so maybe...

But we all railed on the Nintendo & Sony for shoehorning in motion gameplay that don't really add to the enjoyment of the game.

Honestly, I'd hate to play Halo with this thing because that would mean I'd be exhausted by the end of the game.

Who knows, maybe for short, casual games?

Minh said:

Dan said:

*snip*

I'll reserve judgement until I see this thing in action for real. Although the demo looks very cool.

Ultimately, this is a web cam (maybe 2 for 3D info) and I've seen those logitec web cam games in the past, and they were rather limited. Will the Xbox make good use of the technology?

MSR did show off some pretty cool cam demo in the past, though, so maybe...

But we all railed on the Nintendo & Sony for shoehorning in motion gameplay that don't really add to the enjoyment of the game.

Honestly, I'd hate to play Halo with this thing because that would mean I'd be exhausted by the end of the game.

Who knows, maybe for short, casual games?

There are some demo videos from the company that made the camera: http://www.3dvsystems.com/gallery/gallery.html  It looks like they worked out how to do full-body motion detection similar to the motion capture technology that studios use, except without wearing the body suit.

What is unique about the camera is that it reads a depth component for each pixel in the image, meaning distance from the camera.  And it looks like from the Xbox demo video there are two cameras on the device, so they could calculate locations in 3d space. 

If you want to do something like, replace the background behind the player's image, its a simple matter of replacing any pixels beyond a certain depth.

Minh said:

Dan said:

*snip*

I'll reserve judgement until I see this thing in action for real. Although the demo looks very cool.

Ultimately, this is a web cam (maybe 2 for 3D info) and I've seen those logitec web cam games in the past, and they were rather limited. Will the Xbox make good use of the technology?

MSR did show off some pretty cool cam demo in the past, though, so maybe...

But we all railed on the Nintendo & Sony for shoehorning in motion gameplay that don't really add to the enjoyment of the game.

Honestly, I'd hate to play Halo with this thing because that would mean I'd be exhausted by the end of the game.

Who knows, maybe for short, casual games?

I'm actually thinking more for applications if it runs on XNA/Windows. I'd love Minority Report-style navigation of photos or Outlook emails or being able to (reliably) give voice commands to control your PC without training.

Dan said:

Minh said:

*snip*

I'm actually thinking more for applications if it runs on XNA/Windows. I'd love Minority Report-style navigation of photos or Outlook emails or being able to (reliably) give voice commands to control your PC without training.

 

I know, I wish to see it on PC as well. It would be interesting to skip multi-touch monitor to a full blown motion sensor camera control.

The camera technology behind it interested me for a while until I read a few of their papers and determined that they're just using shadows yet again for depth determination. Which is ideal in ideal situations but will diminish greatly if you are for example wearing the wrong clothing or have a poor or low light levels.

It is a great PR victory though. They might even build a box with a couple of cameras and microphones in them for depth capture/voice capture and try and pump out a few gimmicky games. See if they sell. Or more likely see if they sell 360s to otherwise Wii converts...

Hopefully someone with a ton of money and free time is working on better 3D capture technology or taking what we already have forward. Like laser scanning for one example. Because this junk will not hold out under day to day trials.

ManipUni said:

The demo is very gimmicky and unrealistic.

The camera technology behind it interested me for a while until I read a few of their papers and determined that they're just using shadows yet again for depth determination. Which is ideal in ideal situations but will diminish greatly if you are for example wearing the wrong clothing or have a poor or low light levels.

It is a great PR victory though. They might even build a box with a couple of cameras and microphones in them for depth capture/voice capture and try and pump out a few gimmicky games. See if they sell. Or more likely see if they sell 360s to otherwise Wii converts...

Hopefully someone with a ton of money and free time is working on better 3D capture technology or taking what we already have forward. Like laser scanning for one example. Because this junk will not hold out under day to day trials.

So Manip what you're saying in your characteristically cheery way is that if you're a Goth it's not gonna work.

Well news flash, yes it's a gimmick we all got that, just like the Wii is a gimmick. It is going to take investment and refinement to get it to an ideal but it's version 1.

Minh - I can't see this system being used for long game like Halo but I can see a new breed of shooter/explorer game and all the better if you get some real exercise (I didn't want to say but your avatar has gained afew pounds over the years  )

But having said that, if MS can really pull it off then it really is a game-change (NPI)

I mean forget about the tyre-changing thing. Imagine what they can do with exercise/fitness software.

There's been talk about Blizzard talking with Microsoft about a new Xbox, but I'm suddenly wondering if they're not planning to simply use this, and extend the life of the 360 instead.

Bas said:

I'm wondering.. there's a bunch of genres that don't work all that well on consoles, due to the lack of a keyboard/mouse. RTS games are one thing, MMO's with a lot of actions you have to bind are another. Obviously, you could try to reimagine the traditional interfaces for those genres to fit the existing controllers, but would this thing, if it indeed works as advertised, be able to bridge that gap? If it recognizes hand gestures, you could select units, action bindings et cetera with your index finger. For an MMO, you could make it like a multitouch thing where you can use your hands to zoom in and out on the battlefield, drag a box around the units you want to select with your index finger, and then point to where you want them to attack.

There's been talk about Blizzard talking with Microsoft about a new Xbox, but I'm suddenly wondering if they're not planning to simply use this, and extend the life of the 360 instead.

I just watched the demo...

"You ever wonder what the bottom of an avatar's shoes look like? Well bam! there it is!"

W.

T.

T?

Dan said:

Our Coding4Fun team was exchanging emails on this as it would be amazing to make hackable like the Wiimote control Brian Peek had done a while back. I've emailed the XNA team to see if there's a dev story there, but it would be awesome if there was so you can build Windows apps/games with this too

I'm actually thinking more for applications if it runs on XNA/Windows

My fear is that is is a technology that MS licenced... and whoever owns it has the rights to make a generic PC version... and might make MS lock it down...

MS unlocks the gamepad & camera & such.. but I think this device is entirely a different ball game

Sabot said:

ManipUni said:

*snip*

So Manip what you're saying in your characteristically cheery way is that if you're a Goth it's not gonna work.

Well news flash, yes it's a gimmick we all got that, just like the Wii is a gimmick. It is going to take investment and refinement to get it to an ideal but it's version 1.

Minh - I can't see this system being used for long game like Halo but I can see a new breed of shooter/explorer game and all the better if you get some real exercise (I didn't want to say but your avatar has gained afew pounds over the years  )

Minh - I can't see this system being used for long game like Halo but I can see a new breed of shooter/explorer game and all the better if you get some real exercise (I didn't want to say but your avatar has gained afew pounds over the years  )

Hey, those are lean pounds! >  

Maddus Mattus said:

Human controllers!

Whahaha

Wiiiiiiiiiiii eat your hart out!

I would love to see this integrated into Windows Media Center,.. Where's the remote dammit!

I was seriously, seriously impressed with the Milo demo & Media Centre integration was my first thought too.

Win 7 voice recognition works well (ie out of the box with my brit accent - no training required) but the style is a bit OPEN APPLICATION-NAME . A Milo conversation seems way more natural.

Looking forward to the day when this happens:

[Simo slumps on sofa]

Simo: Hey TV.

TV: Hey, you look tired. Do you want to veg out & just watch a show?

Simo: yeah I am knackered. Got any recorded stuff I haven't seen yet?

TV: A tonne of your partner's CSI shows and last night's Ashes to Ashes. Would you like to sync your zune before we start?

Simo: Stick on Ashes, oh and TV ... about the Zune

TV: Yes?

Simo: I have an iPod like everyone else.

ManipUni said:

The demo is very gimmicky and unrealistic.

The camera technology behind it interested me for a while until I read a few of their papers and determined that they're just using shadows yet again for depth determination. Which is ideal in ideal situations but will diminish greatly if you are for example wearing the wrong clothing or have a poor or low light levels.

It is a great PR victory though. They might even build a box with a couple of cameras and microphones in them for depth capture/voice capture and try and pump out a few gimmicky games. See if they sell. Or more likely see if they sell 360s to otherwise Wii converts...

Hopefully someone with a ton of money and free time is working on better 3D capture technology or taking what we already have forward. Like laser scanning for one example. Because this junk will not hold out under day to day trials.

Where did you read these papers? That's not how the camera works at all.  It works similar to radar except with light.  It emits IR pulses and measures time for them to reflect back.  You can render a grayscale map that shows the depth of each pixel. Closer objects are lighter shades of gray, and so on.

Simo said:

Maddus Mattus said:

*snip*

I was seriously, seriously impressed with the Milo demo & Media Centre integration was my first thought too.

Win 7 voice recognition works well (ie out of the box with my brit accent - no training required) but the style is a bit OPEN APPLICATION-NAME . A Milo conversation seems way more natural.

Looking forward to the day when this happens:

[Simo slumps on sofa]

Simo: Hey TV.

TV: Hey, you look tired. Do you want to veg out & just watch a show?

Simo: yeah I am knackered. Got any recorded stuff I haven't seen yet?

TV: A tonne of your partner's CSI shows and last night's Ashes to Ashes. Would you like to sync your zune before we start?

Simo: Stick on Ashes, oh and TV ... about the Zune

TV: Yes?

Simo: I have an iPod like everyone else.

Just what I need, someone besides my wife talking about my problems,..

I would hope they would build some really hot chick, who never has a headache,..

errrr

No matter, too many bad thoughts atm

Haha... Milo is nice. That's something I would love to toy around with. I wonder how great it works in real. AI is really hard. Let's see how they got around the issues.