Okay, I’m blown away.  When I first heard about Project Natal from Microsoft, I thought, “C’mon, how good can this be?”  Then I kept getting more info about it, and I saw the concept video (below).  Then I though, “C’mon, how real can that be?”  Then I started getting reports from press members out of E3 where it was announced about how real this really was.  Then my thoughts turned to, “When can I get it?  Can I beta test?”

If you haven’t heard, Project Natal is a development project in Microsoft’s gaming division (with research support, I’m sure, from Microsoft Research) that looks like it should be something coming out of academia and 10 years or more from the marketplace.  It’s the interface that machines have always needed, or rather, that we have always needed to interact with them, but have dismissed as impossible, or too far out there, or too sci-fi, or just too scary.  I’m talking about the next big leap in user experience (the term used to describe the experience that humans have interacting with machines).  Not just with gaming, either.

Think about Tom Cruise’s interaction with the machines in the movie Minority Report…then take it further.  It’s here, and it’s real.  We just can’t quite get it yet.

Project Natal was introduced to the world at E3 which is just finishing up.  It is not ready for market yet, and there is no release date announced, but it is unlikely to be in 2009.  2010 is a possibility, though…and I’m telling you, the waiting is going to be hard.  After the reports from the press who got to actually use the system, it seems to be working quite well already.

What is it?: Project Natal a gaming and social interface that doesn’t have a physical controller.  You become the controller.  Using a system of a couple of cameras+microphone array and some software/hardware magic, it can recognize individuals and even small movements from fists, arms, legs, faces, etc.  It recognizes depth, and voice input, and gestures that allow you to interact with the system with no wires, no controllers, no buttons…just you.  You can control media, social interactions with other gamers and friends, gaming input itself, and the possibilities go on and on.  I know…I’m a skeptic by nature, and this sounds too good to be true…but I’m hoping, and first reports are very, very promising.

Here are some of the reports: 

“Believe the Hype”—Stuff.tv

 “Microsoft's Project Natal for the Xbox 360 has changed gaming for ever.”—T3

“The hands-on demos worked great”—Wired Magazine

Here is the official video to demonstrate the vision of the product that apparently really works today.

Xbox 360 - Project Natal

Here is another video from a Microsoft Game Studios subsidiary, Lionhead Studios, who have created a concept that will really get your mind racing.

This is not just for gaming, folks, but it’s probably appropriate that that is where it’s starting.  Think.  Within 18 months, I believe we’ll be tasting the future of machine interaction.  Scary?  A little. Amazing? Unquestionably.  “Open the pod bay doors, HAL”, Natal is coming.

For today’s video, I’m just referencing an episode that I released yesterday for my podcast, The Student Pilot Cast.  This is a flight that Crystal and I took (separately, since it only has two seats) in Hana, Hawaii on Maui back in the summer of 2007.  It was one of the best vacations that we have ever taken, and this, at least for me, was one of the highlights of that trip.

I hope you enjoy SPC Video #4, Flying Over Hana.  Let me know what you think.

I’m including the video here, but for the original post on the podcast site, you can go here.

Well, I did another triathlon last weekend, the SGTRI.  Actually, while a different race, it was the same venue from my first full tri which got cancelled due to weather after the swim.  This time wind and waves got the swim start delayed, and then cancelled as well.  I’m not having good luck at this venue.  So, the race organizers turned it into a run-bike-run event.  It turns out this was a really hard course, both the bike an the run.  They were much harder than I had expected.  I bombed on the last run, but finished, so I guess that’s something.

I did the tri with my friend, Matt, and my brother, Cory.  Matt lives here in Mesa and Cory lives in Park City, UT.  Matt and I had planned on having me fly us up to St. George, UT, where the event was.  That would turn an 8 or so hour drive into a 2 hour flight.  Then my brother asked if I could come pick him up near Park City…so of course, I agreed.  After dropping Matt and our gear off at St. George Airport (KSGU), I got back in the plane and flew up to Provo, UT (KPVU) and picked up my brother.  Then we both flew back to Hurricane, UT (1L8) where our rental home was as well as the actual triathlon (Hurricane is about a 20 minute drive from St. George).  Matt and I got to fly over the western edge of the Grand Canyon both ways.  Here are a couple of pics from that.

We stayed in a great house that was only a couple of miles from the start of the race, so we were able to ride our bikes in on the morning of the tri…no parking or waiting in long car lines necessary.  It was great!  My friend, Jen, from high school and her husband, Marcello, drove up from their home in Las Vegas to cheer us on and take some great photos.

We had a great time.  I wasn’t happy with my performance, but that just gives me some additional motivations in my training…I’ll improve for next time.  Even so, I got to hang out with a lot of great people, got to race in a triathlon, and got to do a lot of flying!  A great weekend, indeed, despite Sandy Hill. 

I dedicated a daily flip video to the experience.  It’s a little long for a daily flip, but I hope you enjoy it.

Matt and I are competing in the St. George Triathlon this Saturday, May 9th, so today’s daily flip was a nice easy training ride we took yesterday.  I’m not as prepared for this tri as I was for my last one (physically), but I think mentally I’m even more prepared.  No matter, it should be fun.

I’m flying Matt and I up to the event on Friday and flying home on Sunday in the Skylane.  We were lucky enough to be able to rent a home very close to the Tri venue and not too far from the small GA airport that we will be flying into in Hurricane, UT.  Should be pretty convenient.

Enjoy today’s daily flip of Matt and I goofing around on the bikes, enjoying the outdoors, and generally having a fun ride with very little pain.  That’s a first for a while.  Some of it is jumpy when I was doing a point of view charging down a hill in the wind…but that’s what it feels like on the bike sometimes…so I left it in.

Today’s daily flip comes from the weekend warrior files.  For the second weekend in a row, my wonderful wife, Crystal, has organized a softball game for a big group of our friends.  Today, for some reason, both Crystal, and later myself, both had our quads start to seize up on us.  Is it a sign of age?  Crystal and I are both fairly active.  She plays racquetball and works out at the gym all the time.  I’ve been training for a triathlon.  Still, though, lately playing softball and spending an hour at the batting cages recently seems to be taking a toll on us.  As it turns out, we’re not alone.  Many of our compadres were feeling a little stiff tonight during and after the game.  Maybe we are just getting old…who knows?  One thing I do know, though, is that once your at the field, pain or not, there’s no NOT playing…so there we all were, having a blast.

We got some Gyro’s from George’s before the game, and Todd and Rachel broke out donuts afterwards for Todd’s birthday.  Also, a lot of fun softball under the lights in between.  I hope you enjoy today’s flip video.

Hey everyone.  Installment number two of the Billwil Daily Flip.  Today we get a couple of at-bats from my youngest son’s baseball game tonight.  I hope you enjoy.

In other Flip news, the Flip UltraHD was released today (thanks, Tim, for tweeting about it).  Might need to upgrade at some point.

Inspired by a comment from one of my Facebook friends, Jennifer, I’ve decided to start Billwil’s Daily Flip, so called because of the little camera I use to capture it (Flip Ultra).  I’m sure it won’t really be daily, but the Daily Flip has a nice ring to it.  We’ll see how it goes; I won’t worry about quality or production value…I’ll just use Flips rudimentary tools to get them out quickly.

Tonight's Daily Flip is about my oldest son.  He has a project to do tonight at school, almost a performance art meets history project.  Each student had to impersonate a wax sculpture of an assigned historical figure, and then recite a memorized spiel on that person when their “button” was pushed.  Interesting.  Meanwhile, Crystal, my slightly agoraphobic wife, was about to go crazy because of the packed hallways at the school.  You, on the other hand, get to enjoy it from the comfort of wherever you are.

Okay, I want to start this post with a statement of fact; I am not a doctor or a disease control specialist, nor do I have training in anything related to disease control.  I do, however, have common sense, and 30 some odd years experience with being a consumer of the media.  Based on all of this experience and common sense, I have one thing to say, “Can everyone just please calm down?”

This swine flu thing has just gotten ridiculous.  The media loves it because everyone is scared an following everything they can on this.  The CDC loves it because they have a voice right now, and probably believe that they can actually lower the death toll this year from the flu (that’s the generic ‘flu’, meaning every strain), and politicians love it because they can get some additional dollars to spend (Obama is already asking for $1.5B, with a ‘B’, to fight swine flu).  The only people who don’t love it are those of us who have actually thought this through.

Let me ask and answer some questions to allow the reader to gain some perspective.  Does anyone know how many people each year die in the US from various influenza viruses (flu)?  Well I’ll tell ya! (homage to Steve Martin, some of you will get the reference). On average, during the 90’s, 36,000 people died each year from flu-related causes, according to the CDC.  Does anyone know how many have died in the U.S. so far from this strain of the flu, commonly called the swine or pig flu?  Zero.  That’s right, no deaths yet attributed to this flu in the U.S.  Even if some do happen, it will be a small percentage, I’m sure, of the overall flu deaths this year.  Do you realize, at least at this point, that you are more likely to be killed by an actual pig than by this virus?  Chew on that one for a while.

It reminds me a bit of the hysteria that always surrounds shark attacks.  It is staggeringly unlikely to die by shark, or even get injured by one, even if you spend a fair amount of time in the ocean.  Shark attacks, though, and feeding on people’s irrational fear of sharks, makes for a good news story.  I see similar frenzies related to airplane accidents.  While airplanes are generally a very safe way to travel or have fun, people, for whatever reason, tend to be scared of them.  News agencies and politicians use these types of fears all of the time to create panic for their gain.  Now, before someone freaks out, I don’t put most of the blame on those exploiting fear, but mostly on those being exploited.  All it takes is a little critical thought and a little self education to realize you don’t have to be susceptible to exploit in this way.  It does beg the question though; which came first, the irrational fears that people have or the hysteria created by the media?  Interesting anthropological question…does the hysteria creation and fear mongering just feed on these fears,  or partially cause them, too?

Back to the virus.  I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be told about this strain or variation of the virus, or that people shouldn’t try to keep from spreading the flu (again, generic flu, as in any strain); this is common sense.  But personally I believe this hysteria is way overblown and everyone needs to just take a deep breath and get on with your life.  Nothing to see here, folks.  Disagree?  Convince me.  Leave comments on what you think.

Indulge me for a bit of background.  Less than a week ago a colleague and I were talking about the possibilities of a virtualization system that would allow future versions of Windows to forgo all of the baggage of compatibility with, well, everything that has ever been written for Windows.  One of the necessary evils of being the vendor of the world’s most widely used client operating system is that each new release needs some form of compatibility with software meant for previous versions.  This is especially true with business applications that must run on the new OS before an organization can roll out the new platform.  This was a major problem for Windows Vista when it was first released over two years ago; many applications weren’t compatible yet.  This has largely been fixed by the vendors of those applications, but it was a formidable barrier to adoption of Windows Vista.  Even if an organization or an individual wanted the benefits of Windows Vista, if an essential application that they needed was not compatible, those benefits had to generally be forgone, at least without some technical gymnastics that involved dual booting, running some additional OS virtually and managing two PCs in a virtual way, etc., solutions that are not for regular people.

Enter Windows XP mode for Windows 7, announced recently by the Supersite for Windows and validated by the folks on the Windows 7 team blog.  For details on the technology see these entries; I’ll be talking about the ramifications here, not the minutia of the feature which is being covered by others.  Okay, a little more background is necessary.  Microsoft, for some time, has had a set of products available for larger organizations to manage their desktops in an efficient way.  These tools are generally geared for organizations with large numbers of desktop PCs running Windows XP or Windows Vista to help reduce the cost of said management.  The tools are part of a package known as Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) and includes 6 distinct products.  One of these products is called Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MEDV) which was added to the group within the past 6 months.  This product addresses the OS/Application compatibility issue outlined above by allowing an organization to deploy a virtual machine running a different (usually a previous) version of the OS, and allow some applications to run in this virtual environment, while optionally hiding most of the virtual environment from the end user.  Essentially, this let’s a user run an application that is not compatible with Vista on Vista.  This is very important functionality for organizations to allow them to deploy a new OS even when not ALL of their applications run on it yet.

But, what about a typical small business user or an advanced home user?  The Windows 7 team has just announced that functionality very similar to MEDV is being released as a free download for future users of Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions.  This feature, called Windows XP Mode, essentially allows a user to be able to install and use virtually any software that works in XP in Windows 7.  The ramifications of this technology, and future versions of technology like this, are huge.  Let me explain.

Windows, over time, has had to continue to grow as features were added, libraries and APIs were changed and added, etc.  Because of the vast user base for Windows and the importance of backward compatibility, some technical tricks have been done over the years to try to keep new versions of the OS compatible as much as possible with old versions of software.  Microsoft has been fairly successful doing this for quite some time, but this has come at a cost.  Some of these costs are listed here.

1. Change has been slowed.  Even good changes have sometimes been cancelled or slowed because of the ramifications of compatibility.
2. Continually growing compatibility layers (software in the OS that can trick applications into running in an OS that they are not compatible with have been added to each new version of Windows).
3. Advancements in Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) have to bring along historical baggage of the old APIs (deprecated) to ensure compatibility with older software.
4. Increasingly complex code base has to be maintained because of all of the above.

There are others…but you get the idea.  Using virtualization is a big win for the OS because a cleaner break can be made between each release, if necessary, while still allowing the much needed compatibility.  Because this can be achieved through virtualization, these other tricks can be at least partially abandoned which will result in new versions of Windows being cleaner, smaller, lighter, and more secure.  This isn’t a panacea, though, as there are downsides to this type of compatibility as well.

1. Additional resources, especially memory, are needed to make this type of virtualization feasible; you won’t generally be able to do this well on, for example, a low-end netbook.
2. Even though much of the additional virtual OS is hidden from the user, it doesn’t mean it is not there.  This leads to some questions of how that additional OS will be patched, if necessary, and weather or not it increases the attack surface of the computer.
3. There is a question as to whether this type of technology will confuse end users.

Almost all of the downsides of this type of compatibility can be addressed by good implementation.  The only one that can’t is the issue of additional resources needed to run the virtual OS.  I believe that in most cases, this will be a non-issue going forward.  We have already reached a point where increasing the power of the processor in a computer and increasing the amount of RAM available will have diminishing returns for MOST users.  As the prices of hardware continue to decrease, we may have found a very good use for that extra power that almost all new PC’s have; virtualization.  In addition, this extra horsepower is only needed when one of the “incompatible” applications is running.  With most applications it won’t even be an issue.

So that leaves all of the possible drawbacks that actually can be minimized by a good implementation.  A direct hit by Microsoft for this technology will be something that is easy (and automatic) for an end user to keep patched, and when installing Windows XP mode, or any applications that need it, a seamless and expected experience.  We already know what the experience is like when running an application virtually like this, and it is quite good (i.e. the experience is essentially the same as running any other application).  I am very interested in getting a chance to test this functionality from the perspective of an end user, and you can bet I will update this blog with my results.  I’m very encouraged by what I see at this point, though.

So to bring this back around, I asked, and I received.  This functionality has come earlier than I had expected, which doesn’t happen very often.  Since I have only heard of the feature recently, I thought we would not see it until perhaps Windows 8, so I’m sure you’ll understand how pleasantly surprised I was to find out we would be beta testing this very soon.  Here is a screenshot from the Windows Blog of an application running in this mode, and its icon in the start menu.

Make no mistake, this is big news for Windows 7, and the Windows platform in general.  If the team working on this implements this well, it can, and will, change a lot of things going forward.  Time will tell, but so far this looks like a big win for Windows users.

If anyone hasn’t checked out Joss Whedon’s “Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog” yet, go ahead and enjoy it right here.  Joss (the creator of several comedy/sci fi TV Shows, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the current, less comedic, more dramatic, The Dollhouse) and his brothers have created this three act webisode feature that is absolutely incredible.  In fact, it might be the most creative thing I’ve seen “on TV” in quite a while.  All three acts total about 42 minutes, so about the time it takes to watch a  TV Drama without the commercials (does anyone watch commercials anymore?). 

In any case, it is worth a watch.  Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother, and, well, you remember Doogie Howser don’t you?) and Patricia Day (of another popular webisode series, The Guild) are incredible.  Nathan Fillion (as Captain Hammer) makes a great villainous-hero (roles are reversed in this one).  The writing is great, the humor is subtle at times, and performances and timing are fantastic.  I’ve seen it five times now, and every single time I discover something new.  Not sure that trend will continue beyond 5 views, but nevertheless, there is a lot of comedy hidden in this gem.  A sequel is in the works…but the medium and timing are unknown at this time.  For more information, check out the official fan site.  Enjoy, and leave comments on what you think.  Don’t miss the full screen button in the upper right corner of the video…sit back and relax while you watch.