Next generation this and next generation that. At the CES this year everyone is using the expression and a lot of them wants their product to be the next generation product. But, what does “Next Generation” mean really. Well, according to Toshiba it means to be able to control your TV using nothing but hand gesture controls. The TV has a couple of sensors in the front panel that will pick up any gestures that the viewer might do.
The system and idea have long been a thought among several manufacturers and the latest in gaming is the Natal project which is entirely dependant on gestures in general. The only question is how it will all work on the Toshiba Cell TV. There are several different gestures that triggers different features on the TV and while watching the demonstration it truly looks super sci-fi and almost a little Minority Report-ish. However I am sure the technology is far simpler than what it really looks like.
There is however several issues that this whole concept brings up and I am not sure how they will solve them. For example. What if you’re a bunch of guys at home watching football. Sometime during the game there WILL be emotions going into gestures and most definitely there will be some standing up waving your hands at the players on the screen, right? What then…? Will the channel change, the channel menu come up or possibly turning off the TV entirely? I can’t imagine what kind of anger will be involved in constant channel switching will trigger.
Or, does Toshiba assume we will sit idle and still through football games now like zombies only cheering for our favorite team inside of ourselves? Well, the concept is very interesting but as you can see there are several question that needs answering before I will go all out on this highly anticipated concept.
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