Kinect and Airplay: What's So New?
I've been quite puzzled over this for a while now: why does everybody get so exited about new products which are based around tech that's already existed for a long time? I'm using the new Kinect and Apple's new "AirPlay" as examples, because they are the most obvious ones.
Starting with the Kinect: how is it different from the Eyetoy for PS2/PS3 which was released years ago? It's the same technology (the Kinect does have voice recognition, but the basics are still roughly the same) and the only real difference I've noticed is that the Kinect will have slightly more games and a better UI (but that isn't really the hardware). The Eyetoy does only have a few (games), but my point is, the latter is a heck of a lot cheaper than the Kinect and it does roughly the same thing, the Kinect being only slightly more advanced.
Second example: AirPlay. Apple have rebranded this recently so it fits in with everything (iPad, iPhone, Apple TV etc..). The fact is, the tech was first around when the Airport Express was released. I have to say that Airplay as they now call it (it used to be called Airtunes) is very good, but I think tons of people have got Apple mania: they get excited about every single thing Apple releases. If Apple were to go and sell something really bad, brand it, and have a nice Steve Jobs keynote to go with it, I would guarantee you that some people would go ahead and buy it.
Henry Taylor-Gill Jan 2, 2011 at 2:12 PM
Reader Comments (2)
Eye toy is nothing like kinect, kinect adds a whole new depth of field to the game, all eye to is doing is taking the outline of your image!
The kinect is a 3d camera it can actually detect the difference between whats in front and behind you. Eyetoy did not detect any body parts. All the eyetoy did was detect where anything was in front of the camera. For example if I had a stick and I put it in front of the eyetoy and was playing a game where I had to pop a bubble, the stick would work and I could play the game. If that same game was on kinect the kinect would not detect the stick, therefore you cant play the game with the stick it would only detect your body to play the game.