Project Natal Tech to Appear in Other Products

This year, Microsoft will release a camera that tracks 3D motion as input for the Xbox 360, but the same technology will also be used in other consumer electronics.

Primesense, an Israeli chip designer, today confirmed its partnership with Microsoft on Xbox’s 360 motion controller, codenamed Project Natal. And at CES 2010 last January, Primesense showed off the technology in applications besides video games. At the time, the company couldn’t say it was working with Microsoft (Microsoft reportedly acquired an Israeli maker of 3D cameras last year, but no relation to PrimeSense there). Finally, everything’s out in the open.

What that means is the company that played a role in Project Natal’s birth is taking its 3D-sensing technology elsewhere. One use, confirmed back in January, is Cyberlink’s PowerCinema movie player for Windows, which lets you navigate through menus with a wave of the hand, Minority Report-style. Harry uploaded a demo last January on YouTube, and despite what some of the commenters on that page say, the technology works in real life, too. We’ve both seen it up close and in person.

The camera can detect gestures, so in a virtual remote application, you’d flick your hand or make some other pre-defined motion to activate the controls. Once your hands fall to the side, the remote disengages. Primesense’s technology could also be used in set-top boxes, on computers and even in biometrics, such as facial recognition for PC profiles or age-restricted video content. One other application Primesense demonstrated in January was a green screen without the green screen, as the camera can easily superimpose images behind the user without erecting a sheet of colored paper in the background.

I’m still most excited to see how 3D sensing plays in video games, but it’s good news that Microsoft isn’t hogging the technology. I’m sure we’ll hear a lot more after Microsoft puts on a big show for Project Natal at the E3 video game expo in June.

More iPhone Multitasking Scuttlebutt

iPhone OS 4.0  getting multiasking for third-party apps via an Exposé-style interface? My instinct is usually to avoid any emotional investment in Apple-related rumors. But please, let this one be true…

C3′s Amazing 3D Cities

I’m at O’Reilly Media’s Where 2.0 conference in San Jose. It’s a crowded and exciting confab on one of the hottest topics in tech: location-aware applications and services. There are a bunch of interesting demos going on, but the one that’s really knocked my socks off so far is one I’m watching right now, by a Swedish company called C3 Technologies. Mapping applications such as Google Earth include some painstakingly handcrafted 3D models of buildings, but C3 uses photos taken from aircraft to capture entire cities–buildings, trees, everything–and recreate them as photorealistic 3D models. We’re swooping through London, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and other locales, and it’s just stunning.

This video isn’t new, but it gives you a taste of what C3 does:

C3 says that its technologies requires no human intervention and can recreate an entire city in weeks. The company has recreated fifty cities to date. I can’t wait until stuff like this shows up in mapping programs, on GPS handhelds…everywhere there’s geography. Amazing stuff.

Zune HD Gets 64GB

Microsoft’s apparent accidental pre-announcement was legit: The Zune HD is getting a $350 64GB model (only available direct from Microsoft at first). Existing models are getting $20 price cuts…

YouTube Streamlines Itself

Back in January, YouTube started letting users opt-in to a new streamlined interface. It’s now happy enough with the results that it’s rolling out its new video page to everybody. I attended a press briefing at YouTube headquarters this morning at which company executives showed off the revisions, explained the thinking behind them, and said that all users should see them show up by 7pm PT tonight.

The execs told us that there are two types of YouTube users: casual ones who just want to watch a video, and dedicated fans who comment, create subscriptions, and otherwise dig into the site’s features. The new design tries to satisfy both groups, to turn the casual users into fans, and generally make watching lots and lots of videos so easy and addictive that everybody spends more time on the site.

At first glance, the new look doesn’t look all that new: The site’s essentially YouTubiness is intact, and there’s still a lot to do. But over the past few years, YouTube has added new features at a fast clip, and they’ve usually been crammed in wherever there was some white space on the page to spare. Goal one of the new interface was to simplify: It’s got many fewer links and less use of borders, gray shading, and other trim that isn’t completely necessary.

Some stuff has been moved around, too: The details on the uploader are now above the video rather than to its right. YouTube says that makes them more prominent, and also lets the site devote all the space to the right of the video player to other videos the visitor might want to watch, such as related videos, music-video mixes, and subscriptions (which now follow you around the site).

Continue reading this story…

Cisco Valet Tries to Make Wi-Fi Drop-Dead Easy

Can setting up a Wi-Fi network ever be drop-dead easy for non-technical folks? Maybe not, but Cisco gives the problem its best shot with a new brand, Valet, that will co-exist with Cisco’s well known Linksys line, now being positioned as “enthusiast” products. Setting setup aside, Cisco has definitely come up with some nice Wi-Fi management software—but I wish there were a way to sell people Wi-Fi gear without removing the technical information that explains how one product differs from another.

At launch, the Valet line consists of three items: the $100 Valet and $150 Valet Plus Wi-Fi routers, and a $100 USB adapter. The somewhat Apple-esque packaging for the Valet router I tried out was covered with aspirational taglines such as “Home wireless made easy” and “Welcome to the new home wireless experience.”

The box was also free of most pesky specs, apart from the Wi-Fi Alliance logo showing certification for 802.11b/g/n. That at least told me that while the Valet does support the fastest Wi-Fi standard, it only supports it on the 2.4ghz band, which in many places is woefully overcrowded by signals from neighboring networks, Bluetooth devices, microwave ovens and some cordless phones.

Continue reading this story…

Albatross Face-Off: Microsoft Bob vs. the Apple Cube

I promise we’ll stop commemorating the 15th anniversary of Microsoft Bob after today–and today is the anniversary of the app’s formal release–but bear with me for one last item. Bob’s great significance isn’t as a piece of software–it’s as an albatross around Microsoft’s corporate neck. Just about everyone who wants to take a swipe at a new Microsoft product finds it expedient to compare the item in question to Bob. And in that respect, it’s eerily similar to another product released five years later: Apple’s G4 Cube. Like Bob, the Cube was launched with immense fanfare but sold poorly and died after a year. And it, too, is an albatross–one that will live forever as the product people bring up when they want to predict that a new Apple offering is going to be a dud.

After the jump, a quick comparison of these unexpected soulmates, in the form of a T-Grid.

Continue reading this story…

Nintendo Says “No” to DSiWare Game Transfers

Nintendo is doing digital distribution wrong by not letting Nintendo DSi owners transfer their downloaded games to the new Nintendo DSi XL.

Following the new, large-screen handheld’s launch last Sunday, GameSpot’s Tor Thorsen wondered whether Nintendo might have a way for DSi owners to upgrade without sacrificing the DSiWare game downloads they already bought. “No,” a Nintendo of America representative said, “the games and applications are specific to each system, not each user.”

That’d be like Apple saying you can’t take your apps with you when upgrading to the iPhone 3GS from an older model. Of course that’s not the case, because Apple ties its games and apps to the user, not the device. That means you can also take your apps to an iPod Touch or iPad. It’s a system that encourages brand loyalty and lots of purchases.

Microsoft and Sony handle game downloads in a similar fashion, linking purchases to Xbox Live and the Playstation Network, rather than a specific console. Though Microsoft hasn’t yet been tested with the kinds of incremental hardware upgrades Nintendo offers (it doesn’t sell a handheld gaming console, for that matter), PSP owners tell me you can tie games to several hardware devices. Between the DSi, the DSi XL and the upcoming 3DS, Nintendo will have released three handheld gaming devices in a two-year span. If Nintendo won’t let a user move downloaded content between devices, how can that person buy with confidence?

Nintendo’s system for digital distribution needs a major overhaul based on user accounts rather than hardware. Otherwise, the company is telling its best customers — the ones that upgrade hardware often — that downloadable games are a bad investment.

Google Chrome to Integrate Flash

What if Flash felt less like a browser plugin and more like a browser feature? Google and Adobe intend to try and answer that question. They’ve announced that future versions of the Chrome browser will come with an integrated version of Flash. Download Chrome, and you’ll get a preinstalled, ready-to-go copy of Flash; update Chrome, and you’ll get any available Flash updates.

I know that some folks reading this post will have an instinctive negative reaction to this idea–there are definitely those who dislike Flash enough that they want nothing to do with it. But ardent Flash avoiders are a tiny minority, judging from the fact that the vast majority of the world’s PCs and Macs have Flash installed. (They’ll be able to disable the preinstalled Flash if they want.)

Conceptually, I like the idea–but only if it makes Flash more or less transparent. Over the years, I’ve wasted a fair amount of time reinstalling and updating Flash, dealing with odd errors (like demands for more storage), and recovering from Flash crashes. If the integrated version results in a Flash that’s just there, it’ll be a good thing. And it would help make Flash more palatable in a world in which it’ll compete with open, browser-native HTML5 technologies–which is presumably part of the idea.

In related news, both Adobe and Google are working with Mozilla and other players in the browser community to build a new API for plugins–one which will allow for better integration than existing techniques. Again, good idea if it helps us forget we’re running plugins at all…

Livescribe App Contest

Livescribe, creators of the Pulse smartpen, opened an app store for third-party software back in November–and now it’s holding a contest to reward the coolest programs. I’m a judge, but anyone who’s interested can vote. You don’t need to have a Pulse pen–there are video demos of all entries–but you do need to hurry, since voting closes tomorrow…

Your iPad Plans (Assuming You Have Any)

It’s been a while since our last T-Poll. And with only a few days left until the iPad shows up, we’re entering the equivalent of a political campaign’s final stretch–if you’re going to have an opinion of the iPad based on pre-release information and speculation, you’ve probably formed it by now.

So here we go:

What's Next For SlingPlayer Mobile (iPad!)

I recently checked in with my former Sling peeps, regarding mobile clients. Specifically, codecs and resolution. As we know, a Slingbox Android client is on tap this summer. And I wondered if they’re sticking with WMV video streaming or moving to H.264 for this platform. While I wasn’t able to get a definitive answer on Android from Mobile Product Marketing Manager, Dave Eyler, I have learned they’re “actively moving towards H.264″ – which requires the newer, more capable placeshifters (think SOLO or PRO-HD). Also, it’s really no surprise that they’ll be going the Silverlight route for Windows Phone 7.

In regards to resolution, I don’t don’t believe Sling Media has taken mobile client video resolutions beyond 320×240. By design, due to processing power, memory, bandwidth and battery life. But, here comes the iPad. And I don’t want a pixel-doubled iPhone SlingPlayer app on that large screen. Fortunately, Sling has confirmed they’re prepared to accommodate me with something a bit better, some day…

When it makes a noticeable difference in quality, we will definitely provide higher resolution streaming.  The iPad is a good example of a device where we are hard at work on this, but unfortunately it won’t be there at the April launch.

(This post republished from Zatz Not Funny.)

5Words: Internet Explorer Patch Can’t Wait

Microsoft’s emergency Internet Explorer fix.

A Verizon iPhone? Maybe. Unclear.

The iPod’s creator leaves Apple.

Woz has big iPad plans.

iPhone App Store in Facebook.

AT&T broadband: faster, more markets.

Little laptop, full-size keyboard.

iPad sales figures? Who knows!

Zinio’s AIR app is slick.

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Free MapQuest Navigator for iPhone

Turn-by-turn spoken driving instructions–basic ones, at least–are now free on the iPhone…

Forget Bob–Let’s Talk About Packard Bell Navigator

Thinking back to my youth, my dad suffered from deal myopia. He was always looking for one, and couldn’t pass up buying whatever appeared to be the best value for our family. Sometimes those deals turned into ordeals– like the time when he purchased a PC that was preloaded with Packard Bell’s Microsoft Bob-like front end. I thought about it as I read our coverage of Microsoft Bob‘s fifteenth anniversary today.

The Packard Bell that was rigged to boot into an interface called Packard Bell Navigator, an alternative shell for Windows that was designed to make using a PC easier. It presented the user with a virtual study instead of the Windows desktop and had a brief and unremarkable existence during the mid-1990s. But it predated Bob, and surely reached far more people–Packard Bells may have been famously shoddy, but they were also the era’s best-selling home PCs.

Our prior family PC had run Windows 3.x, and we had a great collection of shareware games. I became proficient at booting into games from DOS, and prior to that, a Commodore 128. The Packard Bell and its virtual room interface befuddled me. It was difficult to determine which objects had any function or not. My greatest discovery was learning how to turn it off.

In all fairness to my dad, he did make some good buys from time to time. The Commodore was incredibly fun, and prior to that, my siblings and I played on a Magnavox Odyssey. (There weren’t any deals on Ataris.)

The Odyssey still sits in my mother’s basement, and I may attempt to get it running again at some point in the future. Thanks dad–let’s just forget about that Packard Bell…Sears riding mower, fiberglass pool lining, and the Didi Seven.

Windows XP: A Free Copy of Bob in Every Box?

I didn’t include this in my history of Microsoft Bob, but maybe I should have–and it’s too fascinating not to share.

In 2008, in Microsoft’s own TechNet magazine, Windows team member Raymond Chen reported that the Windows XP CD included some dummy data as part of an anti-piracy scheme, and that the person who implemented it had some fun with the project:

…he dug through the archives and found a copy of Microsoft Bob. He took all the floppy disk images and combined them into one big file. The contents of the Microsoft Bob floppy disk images are not particularly random, so he decided to scramble up the data by encrypting it. When it came time to enter the encryption key, he just smashed his hand haphazardly across the keyboard and out came an encrypted copy of Microsoft Bob. That’s what went into the unused space as ballast data on the Windows XP CD.

Even if it’s true, it’s a delightfully urban legend-y tale. And no, it didn’t appear in the April issue of the magazine–but it’s almost the same story as one that was an April Fool’s prank.

We’re talking about Bob here, so anything’s possible. Bob being snuck onto Windows XP CDs is no stranger a concept than Bob existing in the first place…