Topic: Bill Gates taking a page from Sony....

[WuTangTurtle]

and steals ideas from the Wii and Eyetoy.  Apparently at a convention he stated he wanted to release a system that allowed u to play virtual tennis, by swinging a real tennis racket.........

Here's a link:

Microsoft WiiToy

[BlackNMild2k1]

That quote is kinda taken out of context, and Gates should've worded it differently to avoid the comparison with Wii, but he was actually talking about something that is nothing like Wii and very similar to some experimental tech that that Sony had some years back.

Here is a video of the tech Bill is referring to
here is the whole quote in context

Quote
Walt: In the offing in the next four or five years, is it possible there’s a new paradigm for organizing the user interface of the personal computer?

Bill: One of the things that’s been anticipated for a long time is when 3D comes into that interface. And there was a lot of experimentation, sites on the Internet where you’d kind of walk around and meet people, but in fact, the richness, the speed, it just didn’t sustain itself. Now we’re starting to see with some of the mapping stuff, a few of the sites, that the quality of that graphics, the tools and things, are getting to the point where 3D can really come in. So I’d definitely say that when you go to a store, bookstore, you’ll be able to see the books lined up, you know, the way you might be interested in or lined up the way they are in the real store.

So 3D is a way of organizing things, particularly as we’re getting much more media information on the computer, a lot more choices, a lot more navigation than we’ve ever had before. And we can take that into this communications world where the PC is playing a much more central role, kind of taking over what was the PBX, sort of one of the last mainframes in the business environment. That will be a big change that will come to it. And as we get natural input, that will cause a change. … Software is doing vision and so, you know, imagine a game machine where you’re just going to pick up the bat and swing it or the tennis racket and swing it.

Walt: We have one of those.

Kara: Yeah. Wii.

Bill: No, that’s not it. You can’t pick up your tennis racket. And swing it.

Bill: You can’t sit there with your friends and do those natural things. That’s a 3D positional device. This is video recognition.

But, now that that is out of the way, I don't think I would want to be in my livingroom and actually have to pick up a real bat to play baseball or an actual tennis racket to play tennis. I think the Wii works perfectly fine in this situation and and the only improvement that need to be made is 3d spacial recognition and better more accurate 1:1 control implementation.  

[Ceric]

I think Bill was trying to find a good example that could easily grasped by most.  It just makes it sound a like the Wii.  Though here is a another.  In a paint program actually picking up a dropper and sucking up a color and then placing it where it needs to be.  3D interaction with object recognition.

[UltimatePartyBear]

But that's crazy, because virtualization (I think there's a better word, but it has slipped my mind) is a large part of a useful operating system.  Otherwise, why don't I just keep my documents on actual paper in actual folders on my actual desktop?  An interface device for a computer is useful because it can represent anything.  A mouse can act like a hand, a touchpad can act like a paintbrush, and a ping-pong ball on a stick in front of a bunch of cameras can act like a tennis racket.

[Ceric]

Granted yes.  Though there are benefits to having specific things for specific tasks.  Though in the end this would ultimately probably be used to monitor you hands so you can manipulate things with "directly" instead of using a mouse proxy.

[BlackNMild2k1]

or a wiimote can act like a mouse, a hand, a paintbrush, a ping-pong ball on a stick, a camera and a tennis racket.
Wow, you're right, that is crazy!

But that tech that he was really referring to is crazy. I saw a video on it sometime before the Revolution speculations started up, and remember thinking Minority Report. All the realtime manipulation is just crazy. Interactive maps, instant data transfer and other such stuff. I could even see this being really popular at some point in restaurants as you flip through the menu and get to see whats the items are made with, how they look fully prepared and all the nutritional value right there on the table infront of you.

Combine this tech, with all the crazy stuff they are building in Dubai, and it would appear that the future is finally here.

[Smash_Brother]

MS has spouted off stuff like this on a number of occasions but nothing ever seems to come of it. This will be no exception.

Basically, it's like them saying, "See, we COULD be innovating, but we won't."

[WuTangTurtle]

reminds me of the episode of Invader Zim....

Zim's ultra genius father basically creates some kind of ultra energy generator, and then just says forget it, if you guys can't take this seriously then the world won't get a ultra energy generator!

[MaryJane]

I used to be one of the people who said MS doens't do any innovating, but I was proven wrong recently, and though I can't find the link, and now I have to leave and don't have time to find the link, I'll just breifly tell you why. MS is making for the near future what basically equates to a tabletop computer. It looks like a normal counter top but is actually an all touch screen computer. 2 examples they gave in the article that I can remember:

1. Place a camera or MP3 (obviously the article said a Zune) that has Wifi, and you just place them on the screen and you can literally drag files to and from them.

2. At a restaurant if you're with a bunch of friends, or going dutch on a date (meaning you pay seperately) you drag what you ate to an icon representing you, then pay with your credit/debit card for only those items.

Simple examples, but really this is some pretty cool sh*t. Although when I mentioned this to a friend, the first thing he asked, and it's a valid question, is how do you play games on it?  

[UERD]

That countertop computer is actually a really stupid idea when you think about it.

* It's going to be hard to use for any length of time with the current form factor. Are you going to be craned over for hours on end playing a computer game or whatever? If so, carpal tunnel's going to look benign compared to what your back is going to put you through.
* There are no really good applications for that technology. Is a restaurant really going to spend $4000+/apiece on tabletop computers that'll probably get food all over them, just so that people can pay for their own meals? Can you justify that much money and space spent on something that allows you to offload photos- something I can do just as easily by plugging my camera into my computer with a USB cable? What are the killer apps?
* The real applications for that technology are specialist industries like engineering and design studios, and as collaboration tools, all areas that have their own highly-specialized equipment already.

If Bill Gates had anything to do with it, he should leave technological innovation to the young'uns and go back to saving Africa from malaria.

Quote
Picking up my actual tennis racket and swinging it? We have a name for that Bill, and it's called "tennis."