Interacting with a Screen

I remember when I was a child, my younger brother and I would sit on the floor of our family room right in front of our television playing our Nintendo 64. Our favorite game was Donkey Kong. If our parents had let us, we would have played the game for hours each day. Of course my mother knew better, in that eventually sitting that close to the t.v. would impair our vision and damage our brains. Today, the world of video gaming is being transformed into an entirely different realm, opening doors for children everywhere.

Recently, Xbox invented new technology that allows video game users to actually interact with their television screens. Instead of sitting on the floor or on the couch while playing, children are required to stand up, move around, and play active games. Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer reported to the New York Times that, "The Kinect technology is a new way of communicating with computers." Despite my addiction to video games as a child, I am no longer an avid video gamer. However, when I was shopping at Best Buy a few weeks ago, the store happened to be doing an interactive demonstration with Xbox Kinect. Children and their parents were lined up to test the new technology. For once, being able to play a video game might actually be something that parents support thanks to this new interactive technology.

Xbox Kinect has certainly been a popular item for children, selling over 8 million machines in the first two months available to consumers. While it certainly provides new opportunities for children, what possibilities does Kinect offer to society as a whole? Truthfully, the technology developed for Kinect will most likely spread into other aspects of our lives, to take over more than just the video game market. Microsoft's computer technicians have already begun developing software similar to the Kinect that would have the capacity to control "home applications." For example, "smart" technology would allow us to create avatars for our homes, just like in the movie "Smart House." We could potentially control our entire house with just one machine that operates itself. Thanks to the Kinect technology we will someday be able to control our entire lives and homes just by waving an arm to relay our message to a remote.

Interactive technology not only opens doors for children in the video gaming world, it also gives adults opportunities to simplify their lives. The possibility of interacting with our technological devices would continue making the work place, education, and communication more fast-paced. While it will obviously take adjustment and change, overtime we will be able to adapt to new technology. Starting with a seed as small as Kinect and video games, our constantly connected society can surely use interactive technology to our advantage.