Kinect will be more than a video game system
If you haven’t seen or played with a Kinect, just wait a little bit. You will soon. It’s the new big thing and the hot item this holiday season. Which is no big deal, really, because every holiday season has one of those. But there may be more to this one.
The Kinect is a way of controlling the action in a video game without actually holding any kind of controller. It’s an accessory to the Xbox 360 and it watches you with a camera, translating your movements into action on the screen.
Gary Keith Brubaker is a professor of software development and game studies at SMU Guildhall. He was building games back before most current game players were born and went on to build many popular titles. He says that when most new game technology comes along, the first response is to match old games to it, that’s what’s happening with Kinect games now. But then people start tinkering with it.
Heather Chaplin is an assistant professor of journalism at The New School and author of the acclaimed book, “Smartbomb: The Quest for Art Entertainment and Big Bucks in the Videogame Revolution.” She says while the military used to be the source for breakthrough innovations, those eureka moments have shifted to the private sector, and the military watches it carefully. She joins us to describe the possibility of Kinect being used in a war zone.
Finally, we talk to Joel Johnson, editor-at-large for Gizmodo.com. He says that the Kinect house of tomorrow may be around the corner. That’s where the Kinect cameras watch you around the house and adjust the electronics and machinery to make your life more comfortable. Joel also says that this might really start to blossom once Kinect is free of the 5-year-old computer running the Xbox 360.
Also in this show, speculation from our Twitter Team about what NASA might be announcing on Thursday.
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
