Microsoft XBox Natal 3D sensor

New 3-D censors coming soon to computers, cameras, other gadgets

Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, July 3, 2009 with story from Mercury News.com

At first I thought, cool 3D. Then the word censors scarred me. Is it a NSA, CIA or Iranian ayatollah inspired plot to censor us in 3D?

No it’s bad spelling. The article goes on to note they mean sensors, as in the sensors of Microsoft’s new Natal game 3D interface for XBox. OK that’s cool.

It might actually be more tiring to work all day in 3D. However another computer interface would help to relieve the repetitive stress of mousing and clicking on a keyboard.

More 3D sensors but down on censors, 3D or otherwise.

Both Sony and Microsoft recently started shipping developer kits on 3d sensors and expect consumer products to hit the stores next year in 2010.

See NJN story and video Microsoft introduces spatial hands free controller – a revolution in computing

Can you remember the movie when the heroine went into the computer room and controlled access to a holographic database using 3D controls long before Tom Cruise did his thing in Minority Report?

“In the science fiction movie “Minority Report,” set 50 years in the future, Tom Cruise’s character interacts with a computer display by moving his hands in front of it.

It won’t take 50 years. Thanks to a promising new kind of image sensor, consumers may be interacting with computers and other devices in the same way in less than five years.

Image sensors are the light-sensitive computer chips inside digital cameras. Standard sensors essentially see and record flat, two-dimensional pictures. But a new generation can “see” in three dimensions, recording not only the image, but its distance from the camera.

That ability could have far-reaching implications. Among other things, it can allow sensors to track movements through three-dimensional space and to see images as three-dimensional objects.

One of the first consumer uses of these new sensors is likely to be in video games. At the E3 game conference last month, Microsoft wowed the crowd — me included — with its Project Natal technology that allows consumers to play video games just by moving their hands or kicking their feet. At the heart of Project Natal is a 3-D camera.” Mercury News.com