Microsoft’s gesture and voice recognition platform is trying to expand its reach.
According to a report in VR-Zone.com, Kinect may be an integral part of the next generation of Microsoft’s mobile operating system. The question is just how much of the sophisticated technology can be brought to a mobile platform.
Kinect is two things – it’s the ability to capture movements with a camera, and it’s the ability to understand human voice commands. Arguably, it is the second feature that would make the most sense for smartphones.
Microsoft has managed to capture a lot of attention with its recent Kinect For Windows platform, which brings all the power of the camera peripheral to PCs, widely opening up the applications it could be used for.
In addition, Kinect is maturing on the Xbox 360 side of things as well. Month after month after month, we were pelted with casual Kinect games that, when all was said and done, were little more than HD versions of the same old fare we’ve seen on the Wii for years.
Now, though, hardcore games are incorporating the subtle nuance of seamless voice recognition and gestures that augment the experience rather than dominate it. Microsoft made a mistake when it said Kinect was a new system, that it meant you no longer needed a controller to play games.
What it is realizing now is that Kinect is a powerful peripheral. It should be a complement, not a substitute, to the technology that is already well established. If it can bring that mindset to the smartphone environment, we might end up with something interesting.
