Touchless
Mindshare, February 2012
Every so often
I have a Minority
Report moment. You know, when today’s
technology actually lives up to that film’s
futuristic world. The most recent occurrence
was in my living room shortly after I installed
our new Xbox 360 Kinect. For those of you
living in a bunker, Kinect is a marvellous
device from Microsoft that enables you to
play games without any remote control. Kind
of like a Wii on steroids. Not only does it ditch
the remote, it also scans you, recognizes you,
and even listens to you. Before you know
it you’ll find yourself jumping around and
talking to your TV set. It’s cool, or as my kids
would say, it’s totes amazeballs.
" Microsoft is now arguably leading the next great evolution in interactivity " |
Kinect is just one example of new technology
that is changing the way we engage with
devices. Just in the last few years Apple has
taught us to swipe and touch rather than click
and type. Microsoft is now arguably leading
the next great evolution in interactivity via
its motion sensor and voice recognition
technology. In essence, you don’t have
to touch anything at all. It’s completely
touchless. It’s also a major step-change
in increasingly intelligent and responsive
objects of all kinds, not just gaming consoles.
Microsoft is of course eager to capitalize and
commercialize on the Kinect experience.
Thus they are offering brands all kinds of
opportunities to engage with their target
audiences in ways simply not feasible with
the old hyperlinked Internet. For example,
Mindshare worked with Nike to launch a
motion-based version of their Chosen video
contest. Users could use their hands to
navigate through video footage and interact
with the content.
Microsoft has also introduced a new ad format
called NUAds, which uses voice recognition to
let you simply command your Xbox to take
some action with the content. For example,
you can choose to like and share an Xbox ad
with your Facebook friends, tweet about your
branded gaming experience, or request more
information on a particular product. Wait
until Microsoft’s recently acquired Skype gets
bundled into the device.
To continue reading, download
Touchless (pdf, 1.2 Mb)