Windows everywhere and Kinect. Those were the themes of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s keynote address Wednesday night at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Kinect, the controller for the Xbox 360 game console that uses gestures or voice, has been a huge success at a time when Microsoft’s efforts in other booming areas — such as smartphones and tablets — are less than stellar. Ballmer noted the company’s original forecast of five million Kinects sold by the end of the holiday season was wildly surpassed, with more than eight million sold within the first 60 days.
Forget Remote Control
Ron Forbes, head of the company’s interactive entertainment business, joined Ballmer to tout Kinect’s future. He demonstrated voice-directed controlling of movie selections on Xbox LIVE’s Zune, interspersed with gestural control. “All I have to do is wave to bring up the playback controls,” Forbes said, eliminating the need to remember “where I left the remote control.”
He showed similar gestural and voice control for music, and announced that Netflix and Hulu Plus will now be Kinect-controllable on Xbox.
Ballmer showed the new Avatar Kinect feature, which uses facial recognition to add a user’s facial expressions to on-screen characters. The feature will be available free to Xbox LIVE Gold members in the spring.
Surface ‘Can See’
Angiulo also showed a new version of Microsoft Surface, designed for large touch surfaces such as a restaurant tabletop. The…