Remember Microsoft's eye-popping, body motion-sensing camera for the Xbox 360 that wowed audiences at the E3 gaming conference last month? Well, according to Bill Gates anyway, what's good for the Xbox could be good for Windows, too.Speaking to CNET News.com earlier this week, Gates let slip the fact that Microsoft's Xbox unit isn't the only group with its mitts on Project Natal, the code-name for a depth- and motion-sensing camera that'll let Xbox 360 owners steer race cars, pummel bad guys, and swipe through menus using full-body gestures.
"Both the Xbox guys and the Windows guys latched onto that," Gates told CNET's Ina Fried. "And now even since they latched onto it the idea of how it can be used in the office is getting much more concrete, and it is pretty exciting."
For example (as Gates said during the CNET interview), you could use the Natal's motion-sensing abilities "for interacting in terms of meetings, and collaboration, and communication."
So … perhaps, during a video conference call, you could use simple hand gestures to mute the audio, swipe through different participants, switch to a new slide, or (this part's my idea) drag and drop photos or documents around your 3-D virtual "space," a la "Minority Report."
Another possibility: using Natal on your home Windows PC, "as you want to manage your movies, music, home system type stuff," Gates told CNET. Again, I can easily see Natal letting you flick through your Windows Media Center collection, browse IPTV channels with a wave, or shut everything off with a dismissive wave.
All very interesting—and given that Microsoft's aggressive Xbox division appears on track to deliver Natal next year (fingers crossed), this isn't just another pie-in-the-sky R&D project (like Surface, for example) that'll never achieve widespread use. Fingers crossed.
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