Microsoft's "Kinect" system is a game changer

I think Microsoft has a major, long-term, hit on its hands with the Kinect sensor, which was released Thursday.

Kinect retails for $149.99 and is essentially a camera that detects players’ movements and some voice commands.

Sony’s new PlayStation Move controller and the popular Nintendo Wii-Mote both allow users to hold wand-like devices in their hands to play games. This allows for a unique playing experience, involving the player in more true-to-life movements. If you want to swing a golf club or a light sabre, you wave your Move or Wii-Mote controller like a golf or Star Wars weapon in real time.

Kinect allows you to do this without holding anything.

I think, potentially, Kinect will be as big a game changer as the Nintendo Wii became.

It’s easy to set up. If you have a newer “slim” Xbox, you plug in one cable in the rear of the machine. If you have the older version, you plug in the Kinect to a USB port and to a power source. The Kinect detects body movements in a virtual “field,” so you will need a little space. I had to move a table and a chair, and you need to be standing six to eight feet away from the sensor.

Using Kinect in the Menu screens reminded me a lot of watching Tom Cruise in “Minority Report.” You are swiping things left and right with your hands in the air while watching the TV screen respond to your movements. The revamped Xbox Live experience is stellar, too.

With Netflix, ESPN and the upcoming Hulu Plus, Xbox is a solid alternative to Google TV or Apple TV and is something many people already have in their living rooms. The ESPN intergration is especially cool, allowing you to see “SportsCenter” on demand and view live and saved sporting events, including some out of market.

Moving around the menus is seamless -- and sometimes hands free -- and you can even tell Kinect to do things with your voice, such as turn on, play a disc, go up a screen or back one. But it’s not perfect.

Kinect had issues detecting me while I was seated, and playing “Kinect Joy Ride,” a simple driving game, required you to stand up and hold your hands in front of you like you’re gripping an imaginary steering wheel. The driving game, though, is quite fun, and Nintendo simple, except its got HD graphics. I just would expect to sit down while I played a driving game.

In some sports games, Kinect can’t detect how hard you throw a ball or necessarily which direction. It just knows you made a throwing motion. Still, “Kinect Sports” should be every bit the hit here that “Wii Sports” was before it. Bowling while making real bowling motions -- with arms and legs -- is incredibly realistic. Track and Field got me sweaty and I just flat enjoyed kicking the balls around in soccer.

“Kinect Adventures” was another standout among the games I tried. You played in space, in water and on mountains. The graphics were amazing and truly using your whole body to play, while not perfectly implemented, is a new thing in videogames. There’s a “Space Invaders” like segment on Adventures where you are smashing balls with hands and feet that is just amazing.

“Dance Central” featured music from Salt N Pepa (“Push It”) and Craig Mack (“Flava In Your Ear”) and asks you to repeat the dance moves you see. Simple. Fast. Fun. But my favorite was “Your Shape Fitness Evolved.”

It features workouts created by the guys at Men’s Health and Women’s Health and you basically create a character that looks a lot like you (with a digital picture of you) and follow the on-screen assistant in a variety of workouts from step aerobics to boxing. The game gives you feedback as you go to make sure you’re doing moves correctly and I think you could really get in shape using this.

I think this is something families will really enjoy. You can video-conference from your living room, connecting your family all at once to loved ones who have a Kinect or a Windows Live Messenger account on their PC. And as Microsoft works out the kinks via firmware upgrades, I think Kinect could end up as the best of all the new controller gizmos.

It’s definitely on my Christmas list.

Sony unveils Google TV

Google TV is here.

At a big news conference in New York late Tuesday afternoon, Sony unveiled a line of TV sets featuring integrated Google TV, which will allow users to surf the internet on their TV as well as watch traditional TV programming.

Sets go on sale Oct. 16, with prices running from $600 to $1,400. Set sizes, for now, range from 24 to 46 inches. If you already have an HDTV, you can buy a Blu-Ray DVD enabled set top box for $399.

Sony is aiming this at people who are already watching TV programming on their computers, such as early broadcasts of sporting events and YouTube videos.

Google TV uses the same Android operating system that has become uber-popular among cell phone users. Google TV comes with a Chrome Web browser. Several partners are already on line to provide content including Amazon, Netflix, NBC Universal, the NBA, Time Warner and USA Today.

The Google TV comes with a remote that has a full QWERTY keyboard.

Apple introduces Apple TV, new iPods, fixes iPhone issues

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled a new line of iPods Wednesday and a new $99 Apple TV. He also introduced a new operating system for Apple's mobile devices that will correct issues with iPhone 4 and with older iPhones running slowly when using the new operating system.

The new iPod Touch will add all the popular features on iPhone 4, including the "Retina" display and FaceTime video conferencing. Apple TV will let users rent movies and TV shows and stream content from Netflix and YouTube.

Also a new version of iTunes will be launched with a Facebook-like social intergration app.

A quick rundown of the day.

New iPods Launched

Jobs said the company has sold 275 million iPods in its history.

Every iPod is being redesigned and will be available next week. Pre-orders will be taken today.

The new iPod Touch is now the most popular iPod.

"A lot of people call it an iPhone without the phone," Jobs said.

The new iPod Touch is even thinner than the old version, has the Retina Display and runs the Apple A4 chip, just like the iPhone 4. It has 3-axis Gyro plus a front facing camera with FaceTime over WiFi. A rear camera has also been added with HD video recording.

The new touch will have 40 hours of music playback. It's $229 for 8 gigs, $299 for 32 gigs and $399 for the 64 gig version.

More than 1.5 billion games and entertainment titles have been downloaded to the Touch.

-- The new iPod Shuffle is smaller than last year and has buttons, voiceover and playlists. It's about the size of the palm of your hand. It'll speak through your playlists, Genius mixes and the Voice over will tell you song and artist and even let you know when the battery needs charging. The shuffle is good for 15 hours per charge, Jobs said, and comes in five colors. Price is $49.

The new iPod Nano is 46 percent smaller and 42 percent lighter and loses its click wheel. It's square shaped instead of rectangular. It uses the same multi-touch as iPhone. It has a clip on it to attach to your clothes. It's got FM radio, the Nike pedometer and 24 hour audio battery life. This comes in six colors. Price is $149 for 8 gigs; $179 for gigs.

NEW ITUNES RELEASED

Jobs said 11.7 billion songs have been downloaded from iTunes, more than 100 million movies, 450 million TV episodes and 35 million books.

Jobs announced iTunes 10, the latest version, Wednesday with a new logo. It launches today.

What's new?

The interface has changed and Apple has added "Ping" to iTunes, a social network for music. Ping is available on computer, iPhone and iPod Touch.

"It's sort of like Facebook and Twitter meet iTunes," Jobs said. "It's a social network all about music and its' built right into iTunes."

Users can follow favorite artists and friends and find out what's popular. Simply click the Ping link in iTunes. A top 10 chart of songs and albums is customized for each user based on what their friends and favorites are downloading.

NEW APPLE TV LAUNCHES

The old Apple TV was $229. The new one is $99. It'll launch in four weeks with pre-ordering starting today.

Introduced in September 2006, Jobs said Apple has not sold a lot of its Apple TV hardware, but the users who use them tell Apple they love them. Jobs said users said they wanted Hollywood movies and TV shows.

"They don't want amateur hour," Jobs said. "And they want everything in HD."

Jobs said consumers don't want a computer attached to the TV or to have to manage storage. "Your hard disc starts to fill up, what are you gonna do?" Jobs said.

The new Apple TV is about 1/4th the size of the current Apple TV. You can hold it in your hand. It's a small black box. It has a power cord, HDMI, and an ethernet cable. WiFi is built-in. It comes with a remote.

Users will rent all their content and not purchase anything. The device will stream content from your computer with no synching required.

First run movies will cost $4.99, on the day and date they are released on DVD. Renting HD TV shows will be 99 cents. These shows will be commercial free. Only ABC and Fox are on board first. Jobs said he expected the other major studios to come on board soon.

Netflix subscribers can stream content on Apple TV, Flickr, mobileme or YouTube.

NOTES:

-- Apple released its new operating system, iOS 4.1 that fixes promixity sensor bugs, bluetooth issues and a problem where the old 3G iPhone slowed down with the new operating system. Users will be able to upload HD video over WiFI, rent TV shows and Apple's Game Center will debut. The new system debuts next week and is a free download via iTunes for iPod Touch and iPhone.

A new feature is High Dynamic Range Photos. Users tap a button and the camera takes three photos in rapid succession. One will be shot in normal exposure plus one that is underdeveloped and one over exposed. It then combines the three to produce an "HDR" photo. The normal and HDR photos are both kept in the camera roll.

GameCenter is used for multi-player games and allows you to challenge friends or auto-match you with players. Gamers can compare scores and see popular games.

-- Jobs offered a sneak peek at iOS 4.2 for iPad that will come out November, as a free update for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. "It's bringing everything to iPad," Jobs said including folders, GameCenter, HDR photos and wireless printing, a much requested app.

A new feature, AirPlay, will also debut. It'll allow users to stream audio, video and photo to other devices. Users with an iPad or iPhone can stream content to Apple TV.

You can watch a movie or look at photos on iPhone or iPad and watch the rest on your flatscreen via Apple TV.

-- Apple has shipped 120 million iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch products in four years, Jobs said. He said Apple is activating about 230,000 new iOS devices every day. That figure doesn't include upgrades.

-- There are 200 apps per second are being downloaded from Apple's App Store, and more than six billion total in its history. There are more than 250,000 apps currently in the store, 25,000 are iPad exclusive.

-- Jobs said Apple Stores draw more than one million visitors several days per month. He said more than half the people buying Mac computers are new users.


Link: Apple set to introduce new hardware Wednesday

Apple expected to introduce new iPod touch, iTV today

Apple, Inc, will hold its annual fall media conference Wednesday at 10 a.m. PST, and Steve Jobs is expected to announce a revamped Apple TV set-top box as well as introduce a new iPod Touch that will rival iPhone in screen resolution and other features.

The event will be streamed at apple.com and requires a Mac computer running the OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard operating system and the Safari web browser, an iPod Touch or iPhone running the iOS 3.0 operating system or higher or an iPad.

Businessweek has reported that Jobs will introduce a new $99 Apple TV product that will stream movies and other content from Netflix. The current Apple TV costs more than twice that and is basically a movie and TV rental service that allows users to get content from iTunes and watch on their TV.

Other published reports have speculated that the new Apple TV will also allow users to download TV series for 99 cents per episode shortly after they air.

I think we can expect to see a new iPod Touch that will look a lot like the squarish iPhone 4. I think the new Touch will feature Apple's "Retina" display, front and back cameras and include FaceTime video chat. It will be interesting to see if Apple allows 3G over the device, which may include a microphone and would then allow users to make calls via services like Skype.

A new smaller iPod nano with a touch screen is also expected to debut.

Speculation is running wild about Apple TV and a new iPad 4.0 operating system that will bring features like folders to iPad. Apple may also debut a new iLife suite, which includes Apple's photo software (iPhoto), website creation tool (iWeb) and DVD creator (iDVD).

The wildest rumors claim we'll hear about the white iPhone 4 and the Verizon iPhone at the conference. Meanwhile, a Mexican carrier is claiming that we'll see a new iPhone 4 released at the end of September that has been redesigned to thwart the antenna issue that has caused some users to lose signal.

We'll have a full report tomorrow on what Apple does -- and does not -- do. As usual, the guys in Cupertino sure do know how to get the tech masses into a lather.