Microsoft, Microsoft Kinect | featured news

Elmo, Big Bird and the rest of the 'Sesame Street' crew have always talked to kids. Now, they'll try to have a two-way conversation with their pint-sized audience using Kinect, the motion and voice-sensing controller created by Microsoft.

Virtual reality goggles, Google Glasses, Valve's wearable computing crusade, and now a patent discovered that shows Microsoft working on the next level of Kinect technology: turning your room into a game environment through 3D projection. Virtual reality gaming is just around the corner, it appears.

Some assembly required, at this point, but exciting news, especially if you’re a tinkerer. Microsoft will build a special version of the Kinect motion controller for the Windows, Craig Eisler, general manager of Kinect for Windows wrote in a blog post Tuesday. The Kinect has been a hit on Microsoft’s XBox360 gaming console, but the motion-sensor has also sparked widespread interest from tinkerers, hackers, scientists and startups.

Microsoft Corp reported a dip in quarterly sales of its core Windows operating system, mirroring a recent downturn in personal computers and sending its shares down slightly.

A mock Google product announced on April Fool's Day promised to let users control GMail with their body. But a group of university students and hackers figured out how to really do it, using a hacked version of Microsoft's Kinect.

If Microsoft has its way, we all will be playing video games by moving our bodies instead of holding remotes starting November 4.