Some Windows 8 Laptops May Come With Built-In Kinect Sensors 140
An anonymous reader writes to point out reports that Asus is "working on a new laptop that will include Kinect gestures and will be compatible with Windows 8," and adds, "What does this mean for the consumer? Portable gestures in Windows 8!" Wired has an article based on the same report, which mentions also the prospect of devices incorporating alternative gesture-tracking software from SoftKinectic and others.
And the purpose is..? (Score:5, Interesting)
Kinect in the living room makes sense - voice/gesture commands in place of a remote control is surprisingly useful (when it works). On a laptop though -- what does the Kinect give that a touch screen can't do better? I mean outside of adult entertainment...
On the other hand, if it can support gestures with your eyes, then it might be useful. For example, gaze at a specific window/monitor and having it automatically come into focus could be quite a convenience ... but I don't think we'll see that for a while.
Re:This could be amazing for the disabled (Score:4, Interesting)
You know I was confused for a moment because I work with "challenged" people all the time, until I realized you might have meant physically challenged people.
Seriously though, how is extra resolution on the kinect sensor going to help physically challenged people? I know some people that have challenges like that and I don't see how extra resolution is going to help with recognizing their hand gestures. I would think that training the software would be far more effective and required because each challenged person is going to have different "quirks" to their movements that need to be learned.
Having that sensor alone as a standard on laptops going forward, regardless of resolutions, seems to open the doors for software to help all sorts of people interact with their computers more effectively and easily.
Of course, ironically, one of the last articles had a poster with ALS being lambasted because he did not take the time to cut and paste from his blog instead of just linking to it. The Jerk! I know right? Would extra resolution help with somebody like Stephen Hawking to recognize facial twitches reliably?
Re:Can we get the systems with windows 7? (Score:2, Interesting)
I have not met a single person who likes Windows 8. Average Joes look at the screen funny and then ask why is this computer pretending to be a cell phone?
Metro on Windows Phone 7 rocks and has great reviews but I am not blowing dough to leave tweets on tweetorama as the vast majority of users use PCs for work now and let their phones and tablets waste such time.
I think it will bomb. Especially in the corporate environment. Many will be resentful and angry as after staying with IE 6/XP for 12 years the last thing they want is to use a 3 year old OS and standardize on IE 8 and get shit up the creek yet again (this time in only 7 years instead of 12). If they choose Windows 8 the users will FREAK OUT not being able to have 5 windows open at once, no task bar, no search function like their is in Windows 7, and people using tweeteroma instead of office working. The METRO versions of Office are just cheap notepad like functionality. Switch to desktop and you can't stay there. Since search is gone when you hit the Windows key you are back in the annoying Cell phone land UI. The gui is schzo and if Windows 9 gets rid of the desktop all hell will break loose and Macs might not look that bad in the corporate envrionment. /bitch ... just not with multitasking with big monitors. Metro 2.0 needs to address these shortcomings.
I worked freelancing and in a pc shop wipping Windows Vista and 7 with XP. Yes consumers are actually willing to pay money to go back to Xp as late as 2010. Seriously. Ms is right but wrong in so many ways. The gui is the future