XB360: Microsoft: Kinect Sensor W/ Kinect Adventu (2010)

No Strings (or Controllers) Attached.

Introducing Project Natal, a revolutionary new way to play: no controller required. See a ball? Kick it, hit it, trap it or catch it. If you know how to move your hands, shake your hips or speak you and your friends can jump into the fun -- the only experience needed is life experience.

You've read the news and hopefully seen it in action, now here are the facts you'll need to explain Project Natal to all your pals. Quiet at the back!

Fact #1: 'Project Natal is the code name for a revolutionary new way to play on your Xbox 360. Natal is pronounced nuh-tall. Okay that was two facts rolled into one.

Fact #2: 'Project Natal' represents controller-free gaming and entertainment. It won't just be the greatest videogames to benefit from so much freedom. Read facts #3-12 to find out why.

Fact #3: Project Natal lets you kick a ball, make funny shadows and such without the need for anything weird attached to your body. Unless you want to. But it won't make a difference to what you're doing. We'll leave that up to you.

Fact #4: The name Project Natal has several sources. Microsoft traditionally uses cities as code names. A cool guy called Alex Kipman, who incubated the project at Xbox, is from Brazil. So he chose Natal, a city along the northeastern coast of Brazil, as a tribute to his country. Alex, being cool, also knows that Natal means to be born in Latin and this felt exactly right for the new possibilities with Project Natal.
Phew, that was a big one.

Fact #5: In addition to Project Natal tracking your full body movement in 3-D, it also recognises your face and facial expressions. It can even detect the change of emotion in your voice. Three facts in one - yummy.

Fact #6: Project Natal remembers your face and voice so that you can connect to Xbox LIVE without the need to reach for a controller. This is the future!

Fact #7: Project Natal is the world's first system to combine an RGB camera, depth sensor, multi-array microphone and custom processor running proprietary software. Memorise this sentence then say it out loud faster and faster.

Fact #8: As part of the Project Natal sensor, the RGB camera helps enable facial recognition and more. We're not going to tell you what 'more' is just yet. We'd love to but we can't. Sorry!

Fact #9: The depth sensor is an infrared projector combined with a monochrome CMOS sensor that lets Project Natal see the room in 3-D (as opposed to inferring the room from a 2-D image) under any lighting conditions.

Fact #10: The multi-array microphone in Project Natal locates voices by sound and can extract ambient noise. This allows headset-free Xbox LIVE party chat and more.

Fact #11: Proprietary software at the heart of Project Natal is what makes the magic possible. This is what distances Project Natal from any other technology on the market, enabling human body recognition and extract other visual noise.

Fact #12: You want Project Natal very badly.

Remember, when Project Natal is ready, it will work with every Xbox 360 console so people who have never picked up a controller can finally join the fun. This is beyond brilliant, so tell all your friends.