Did You Feel That? The Avatar Just Evolved

One of the questions following our presentation at the Summit was about the technical ability to control a virtual avatar through something other than a mouse or buttons. I mentioned that there was some work being done using the Wii controllers, but expected to see much more happen now that Microsoft had released the Kinect motion-sensing technology on their gaming systems.

Gee, it's fun to be right once in a while...take a look at this: http://blog.knowsense.co.uk/blog

It may be time to begin thinking about what it could mean to add the physical presence to those virtual participants in our activities and events. What could this offer us for demonstrating physical activities, equipment or machinery? What might this offer us in areas such as physical therapy, health maintenance or just some good old physical exercise? Do we now create and sell the 'virtual Bowflex' that we apartment dwellers could actually use in our limited space? After all, now that we can link physical movement to the avatar, it's a short leap to creating the little desktop device that creates the virtual resistances needed.

No,  this is not the 'end-all' for virtual environments, and may not change the opinions of those announcing that avatars were meaningless. But...but...this may well be the first public breath of something everyone will be asking about next year. I think I'll pay attention.

John