I tend to think that out of the three current generation consoles, the Nintendo Wii innovated the most not from the point of graphics, but rather, the way one interacts with the game itself. This has led to other developments like Microsoft’s Kinect that uses your entire body as a video game controller itself. We have also seen innovations in smart TVs that can be controlled through gestures from different manufacturers, and here we are with the nTobeBox from eyeSight Mobile Technologies and Innodigital. Basically, the nTobeBox is a set-top box which enables you to interact with your TV without the need for a remote control, although it receives a little bit of help from the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system that will transform any standard TV into a Smart TV, letting you stream content, apps, perform video calls, enjoy Internet connectivity and intuitive hand gesture recognition to boot.
It seems that eyeSight’s technology will enable “users comprehensive control over every aspect of Innodigital’s set-top box”, where both hand gestures as well as hand tracking will pave the way for virtual mouse control, yielding full control over the TV as though you had a handheld remote. I do wonder what the sensitivity is like, and what happens when I just want to swat a pesky mosquito buzzing in front of my face? Will that change the channel by accident?
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