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How Natal Will Watch You And Your Family

by Bryan Vore on Apr 15, 2010 at 06:15 AM


At Microsoft's annual Think Next Convention in Tel Aviv, the company's Israel R&D Center presented a demo that displayed how Natal reads human movement and can somehow determine player gender.

The video over at NextGen-News is narrated by Dr. Ilan Spillinger, Microsoft VP of hardware and technology, and shows what looks to be a surprisingly accurate reading of the motions of the woman onstage. Natal overlays a basic skeleton on what looks like an infrared human image. In the upper right, you'll notice that the woman's avatar keeps up with all of her movements, which is the most important deal here since this is what will appear in all of the games. Halfway through, a dude walks into Natal's sights and it instantly creates a second male avatar, though the system seems to chug a little when more than one person is awkwardly dancing around.

Anyone else think that Natal uses the same technology as the Predator visor?