I just noticed after watching this being a Kinect owner how right his predictions were. Watch 6:20 to 8:10. Bare in mind this was filmed in 2007. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_rxpAgBFQo&NR=1
I'd keep in mind that the underlying technology and software has probably been kicked around in Microsoft R&D since 1995.
It's just a little odd that he hits all the key points and even includes game systems into his topic and describes almost exactly what we have today for the 360. We didn't have that tech since 95 nor the game systems. Seems like the guru's have it all planned out where they want to take technology and by god they are going to achieve that dream.
I'm sure microsoft had atleast been toying with the concepts by then in R&D, when you consider the pool of innovation available someone had to have been thinking of a kinect style grouping of technology if not Gates himself. The underlying technology existed it just hadn't been united for kinects purpose
What the fuck is so special about this.. Anybody at that point could've predicted games and other devices would've gone into motion control. >_<
Since Microsoft is a Contractor for Private industry, aka military. They had this stuff in the late 90s and just become public till now.
I'm sure they had the technology but in this interview Gates is speaking more specifically towards the gaming industry he had a vision where he wanted it to go.
But the thing is, to think that in 2007 they didnt already have a basic concept of kinect is kinda naive. Kinect was released in 2010, in november, and that was uploaded in 2007, june, so about 2.5 years To think that a massive corporation isnt thinking ahead specifically any less than 5 years is kinda odd. Guaranteed they already had a basic outline of what they wanted from "project natal" in 2007, just hadnt put it all physically together at that time. It isnt like Bill Gates was looking into a crystal ball and guessing, he had perhaps just come from a meeting on Natal and it was fresh in his mind
The video was made only 4 years ago and a lot of the tech did exist in some rudimentary form. Very rudimentary. If you can throw $100 mil at something without thinking twice you could have had the Kinect the size of a bus back in 2000. The military has all sorts of simulators worth millions that will likely be common tech in 2025-2030. To say Gates couldn't have pinpointed what would be useful in a piece of hardware that was prototyped in 2010 3 years later isn't out of the realm of possibility. Lay me out what you want in a flying car and I'll bet you if one comes to market it'll have most of those features. Another example, look at Star Trek. Amazing how those communicators work a lot like cell phones. Devices to look INSIDE the body? No way! Clearly we don't have warp drive or transporters but neither of those follow the laws of physics as we know them. Debuted June 1, 2009 and based upon technology by an Israeli company founded in 2005. To be mystified at 2007 having hit some key points on what less than 2 years would bring...well it sort of confuses me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=780bIG6TXFk I recall it well and the fact I really wanted one, glad I never dropped money on it. Personally I can't find gesture based anything to be of any real use as it seems clumsy and needing a good amount of energy on the end of the user to utilize it. If I come home exhausted physically I don't want to change songs by swiping my hand through the air. A click is sufficient. As for games I've still yet to see a killer app.
im pretty sure if your the head of a company like microsoft you can just about predict whatever you want and make it happen.
The company that developed the hardware for Kinect were around before 2007 (2005), so it's not really a great leap of imagination... It's taken a while for the hardware to become cheap enough for home use (as the original hardware did cost several times more then what the Xbox cost back in 2007....). Most of the technology for the Sony Move was around that time too... and demostrations of early move controllers were shown for the Eyetoy on the PS2...
On the subject of Microsoft developing the kinect, this is an interesting article. http://hackaday.com/2011/07/14/did-microsoft-steal-the-kinect/
