Kinectic Energy

Tech pundits have recently been debating whether or not companies like Apple, Microsoft, or RIM should even bother making futuristic videos of imaginary, Minority Report-like products. John Gruber of Daring Fireball makes a good case of why they shouldn't, but he says this regarding the video above:

This is better (it’s human and emotional, with music to match), and the Kinect is a legitimate hit product, but still, read the fine print: “Depictions are visionary”. Now the coolest things Microsoft has shown us for Kinect are things you can’t actually do with it.

True, right now you can't play an invisible violin using the Kinect, but I don't think this video was made for good demo: it was made to inspire. The kids (or teens, or even adults) who watch this are seeing a ground-breaking type of human-computer interaction that still has plenty of implementations left to discover. What we once short-sightedly believed to be just a Wii remote competitor may very well become the way we interact with the living room of the future. This stuff is close. It'll be here by the time your kid gets through elementary school. It's not the crazy conceptual stuff shown in their Productivity video; this stuff is coming tomorrow. Get excited about it. This project is moving. It has energy. Keep on thinking about new ways we could use this, because we're onto something here, and with our SDK and your imagination this is going to be big. Think. Imagine. Create. Where will Kinect go next?

Fostering inspiration is never a waste of time.