Who is The Kinect For?

Right off the bat, I gotta tell you that the XBox Kinect is very cool tech. A system that reads your body motion and translates it into the motion of your game avatar sends every geek bone in my body to quivering with visions of holodecks dancing in my head.

By all appearance, it works fairly well. I put it through its paces using the system's target users, kids. My test group included young children (age four) with the oldest at eleven. It also included one special needs child, an eight year old with autism. I made the choice to use a young group for two reasons, one of which I already mentioned. The other is that kids have more erratic and difficult motions to follow and I wanted to see how the sensors responded to them.

Overall, it went very well. The games are designed for larger motions which I am certain is a limitation of the technology but not a terrible one. It is reasonably sensitive to the entire body and detects a fair range of motion. The avatars do an excellent job of mimicking the motions of the player even when the player falls down. The lag time is noticeable but not terrible.

After watching all four kids play, I was impressed by the system. The games were simple to follow but not easy to play. It did take all of them some time to catch on to the game play and they did have some difficulty with the motions. These difficulties did pass over time until fatigue started to set in. At the end there was a tired but happy pile of kids.

The Kinect is definitely a family system and not designed for the gaming community. I really can't see a serious gamer jumping up and down for the hours at a time normally spent with their controllers in their hands. Even the most athletic amongst us would be hard pressed to keep up the rigors of a game for extended periods of time. the other reason is the complexity and nature of popular games. The interface is just not sophisticated enough for play on popular titles like Call of Duty or Halo. In time, that is likely to change but overcoming the activity level required to play them compared to sitting comfortably with a controller in hand is going to be exceptionally difficult.

For family style play, it is exceptional. With this interface, Xbox has a real chance of knocking Nintendo's Wii system of the top of the hill with this key demographic. The Kinect actually does what many thought the Wii would do: get kids off the couch. It is impossible to play the game in a sitting position. With the Wii, which I own, I can play all of the games seated in my recliner. I've even learned how to box sitting down. The jumping around lasted about two weeks except for my youngest who jumps with all games. As an added bonus, there's no controller to throw through the TV. I'm just sayin'.

It is, without a doubt, a game interface that cannot be bypassed by the sedentary minded. Unless someone far more creative than I can see it, there is no way possible to play with the expenditure of lots of energy. Just as with the Wii before it, the first major market is aimed at mothers who are concerned about the lack of activity displayed by their kids. I admit, my kids are not as physically active as I was and wasn't exactly athletic as a kid. Combine that with the growing fears of childhood obesity, I am not surprised at the strong sales figures despite the sour economy. It really is a fun, family friendly system.

The marketing campaign captures this spirit. It is energetic and conveys a sense of fun. Moms, who make the majority of the decisions for this type of system, respond well to this type of positive advertising. With the exception of the commercial for the exercise program featuring a young couple, most of the ads are very good.

All in all, if you want a system for kids that they will enjoy and wear them out, this is your system. If you're a serious gamer, give it a few years. Upgrades to the tech will make the platform much more versatile. Who knows, there might just be an Xbox Holodeck in the works...

Facebook & The Opt-Out

As I'm sure most of you know unless you've lived on the top of a mountain for the last several years that Facebook is the top of the social media pile. It is so popular that last year the game "Mafia Wars" on the site passed pornography as the number one internet activity. That's the first time that anything has ever passed porn.

So much of how we communicate is being changed by the site that when they make changes it affects us deeply as individuals and as a culture. The problem is not the changes but how we are asked to deal with them and the lack of notice about them.

Remember when we were automatically enrolled in their advertising program so that our names and faces would be used in ads for pages we "liked?" We had to opt out of that one to protect our privacy. That was just an example of how we, loyal Facebook users, are regarded by what is becoming an ever larger and faceless corporation.

The most recent affects all of us and how we communicate on Facebook. Recently, they made a change to the newsfeed that was far more sweeping than would it would first appear and no official notice was given. I noticed that I didn't see postings from several pages anymore nor did I see several of my friends. At first, I wrote it off as just missing them in the vast amounts of posts on my feed everyday. After a while, I began to get a little frustrated. I also noticed decreased traffic on the pages I administrated. This is very frustrating since this is one of the main ways to communicate en-masse to the fans of these pages. Listenership to my program fell off as well. The sudden drop didn't make sense.

Then it came to my attention that Facebook made a change to the newsfeed. Starting a few weeks ago, only people and pages you interact with show up on your feed. Unless you hit "like" or leave a comment on a post (or vice-versa for friends) within two weeks, the page or person disappears. I'm sure many of you are like me. I don't comment or even "like" postings on popular pages so I don't get the annoying notices every thirty seconds. I know I can shut them off but I want some notice on the pages I do interact with on a regular basis. There's not a lot of customizing on that option. The only way to fix this is to scroll down to the bottom of the feed and click "edit options." Once there, choose to allow all pages and friends.

I'm not against the option of selecting who you want on your wall. In fact, for some people, it's a great idea. However, it does have a chilling effect on business, public figure, and organizational pages and their ability to reach their fan base. The news wall is the most effective means most of us have to share event information since we are not able to invite fans to events directly. This is why traffic and listenership dropped off so suddenly. People who did not interact with the pages stopped seeing the postings and links. The current structure makes it almost impossible to reach out without paying for an advertisement.

Although the option does create challenges for me, I am still not opposed to it. My problem is that it should be an opt-in rather than out. Facebook made the choice for us to restrict our communication. My inner libertarian just screams at an unnecessary control on my personal liberty. That may be an exaggeration but not much of one. I am a strong believer in the ability to make choices within the constraints of morality and ethics. Facebook users should have the option to add the restriction not to remove it.

I wonder what the future holds. Facebook took over when it became obvious that they offered a superior service to MySpace. As that service declines on their with each of their so-called improvements, I wonder if there's another service waiting in the wings to take Facebook's place.