And if you leave the room or put a hat on your head for example, it kills you on sight.

It's a bit like the invention of the knife. Very useful tool but can be exploited to make an infinity of damage. The same with the kinect. It's what we do with it that either ends up as heaven or as hell.

I'm really starting to think that the tinfoil cappers are sensible individuals, this is some really twisted shit. Actually monitoring how many people are viewing something in the physical realm. WTF, as evil as I viewed Microsoft to be, I didn't even think they would cross the line like this.

OTOH there were red flag signs this was going to happen: http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/37993

Ugh *headdesk *

Yeah it's just a patent. Kinect is a very messy and inelegant system as it is, effectively implementing something like this seems like one hell of a hassle and and would go down about as well as a dose of facial herpes. I can guarantee a fan backlash of epic proportions if they tried.

It could be worse, it could be a copy protection that disables the games if there aren't enough people (as in forcing multiplayer)..

:P

They can measure the distance between the eyes and determine if the audience has the appropriate age... no more 18 rated games for you kids...

That would be the exact opposite of how console gaming has been going since this generation started.

Instead of local multiplayer, you are pushed to sign up for an online service so you and your friend each have to sub, have your own consoles, and separate copies of the game.

This would be such a sweet application for WoW... to hell with you, PVP bots!

See, it's stuff like this that makes people WANT to crack the system and pirate stuff that is restricted in any way. If this ever ends up a real thing, I can see people finding ways around it. Hell, isn't Kinect a little gadget camera thing that tracks your movements so you can control stuff on the game? What stops you from aiming it at a wall with an inflatable doll while your entire family and your neighbors are watching movies?

+9001

Wait up I thought the whole point of Kinect was getting party groups together?

You're very optimistic about the power of users. It's just another surveillance system. There are billions of them already out there, every shop, every public place. It's for the national security. War on terrorism. You don't want to act unpatriotic and not use your friendly Kinect Control, do you?

Ok, usually I roll my eyes when the 1984 doomsday predictions start coming out... but yeah, this is pretty concerning. I'm hoping SimonG is right and they don't actually do anything with their patent.

I guess you haven't seen Ballmer at a MS Sales meeting.

Microsoft sucks. I'm glad I'm on a Mac now. Screw them and their xbox too.