We know that Microsoft intends a breakthrough into TV with its Kinect motion sensor system, as reported a month ago when the Redmond computing giant unveiled plans to bring documentary channel Nat Geo and kid’s fave Sesame Street into the interactive revolution. But the question remained of who might supply the telly tech to back such an ambitious venture.
Online news rag The Daily has now reported that Microsoft has allegedly approached both Vizio and Sony about a possible deal to supply the television sets with integrated voice and gesture control (no need for a separate Kinect unit) – with the latter expressing an interest. We shouldn’t forget that in July the web domains ‘microsoft-sony’ and ‘sony-microsoft’ were mysteriously snapped up by Microsoft, suggesting the two would hop into bed sometime soon.
As recently seen with Netflix the Kinect has grown from the confines of a gaming toy, into a tool for programme browsing and much more. Microsoft’s partnerships with Nat Geo and The Children’s Television Workshop and the concepts they recently presented demonstrated how physical interaction can be used to actually become part of a TV show or movie.
Just this week it was suggested that Apple’s TV project is also about to get underway, with Sharp delivering flat-screens for the iOS-inspired app-telly. The Apple TV set is also speculated to be coming with the Siri voice command system replacing the need for a remote, so with today’s Microsoft/Sony news it seems that interactive television will become the next big tech battlefield in 2012!
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