Project Natal honored as one of Time’s 50 Best Inventions of 2009
We haven’t seen much of Project Natal after the E3 demo, but the Xbox 360 motion camera seems to have gained a lot of attention outside gaming realms. Even Time took an interest to it. In fact, it impressed them so much that it earned itself a place among the ranks of Time’s 50 Best Inventions of 2009.
We haven’t seen much of Project Natal after the E3 demo, but the Xbox 360 motion camera seems to have gained a lot of attention outside gaming realms. Even Time took an interest to it. In fact, it impressed them so much that it earned itself a place among the ranks of Time’s 50 Best Inventions of 2009.
Project Natal makes it to the list as #5, “Controller-Free Gaming,” which Microsoft pushes to be one of Natal’s key selling points. According to the entry’s write-up:
Since time immemorial — or at least since Pong — one barrier that has stood between gamers and total Tron-like immersion in their video games has been the controller: the joystick, trackball, mouse, light gun or whatever. This year Microsoft demonstrated a technology, code-named Project Natal, that enables players to control games using only body movements and voice commands, no controller required — the gamer’s body becomes the controller. Project Natal uses several cameras, plus a highly specialized microphone and a lot of fancy software, to track the gamer’s body and interpret his or her voice. You move your hand, and the Master Chief (or whoever) moves his hand. It’s that simple. And that cool.
Other notable entries on that list are:
#1 – NASA‘s Ares Rockets
#3 – US$10 million lightbulb
#6 – Teleportation
#8 – AIDS Vaccine
#40 – The Edible Race Car
If you’re curious, there doesn’t seem to be any Marble Cake showing up, so maybe the list is hack-free this time. Wanna see the rest of it? Check it our via the source below.
More from Time:
Via Time
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