We recently did a post about Microsoft’s new motion control system titled ‘Project Natal’. From what I’ve seen, it looks like it could be great fun to use because of being able to use your entire body rather than just remotes.
After delving a little further for information, I came across Peter Molyneux’s ‘Milo’. An artificial intelligence character that can interact with you through Natal. I have to say, I’m absolutely amazed by what I’ve seen as it’s not even 50% complete yet. But on the other hand, I’m a little freaked out by the potential of this new technology. But…….it’s genius!
It’s like Microsoft have got hold of the gaming timeline, folded it in half, and picked a technology years in the future. The potential is massive!
The fact that ‘Milo’ can recognise you, call you by your own name and fully interact seems a little too far fetched to be real. But it is.
Just remember that it’s still in the early stages of development, but from what I’ve read, ‘Milo’ understands when you tell a joke and he’ll smile!! If you don’t talk for a while then he’ll start doing things like looking around the screen or taking things out of his pocket so he has something to do.
Fair enough, these kinds of things can be done through ‘simple’ programming, but it’s the way that he reacts with you that has me totally slack-jawed.
Apparently, he’s going to be a “Super Tamagotchi” when fully complete. But will this be a bad thing in the long run? Will you have to talk to him every day so he doesn’t get mad? Will you have to do activities with him every day like fishing as seen in the video? Or will you simply be able to talk to him whenever you want without any regret? But if you talk to him with a sympathetic tone of voice or a sad look on your face, he’ll register this and probably ask you why?!
Another amazing thing is that, from the video, the women drew an image on a piece of paper, held it up to ‘Natal’, and Milo reached for the paper and produced his own piece of paper in the virtual world and knew what colour pen you’d used!!!!
I really can’t do it justice by talking about it or without even experiencing ‘Milo’s’ AI myself, so the best thing to do is to check out the video below for the demo of ‘Milo’. You really do have to see it to believe it. Of course, there will be a few of you out there who think this is nothing special and it’s all a farce, but nobody should deny that it has potential.
I’m very excited to see ‘Milo’ when he’s fully complete and (once I get an Xbox 360), interacting with an artificially intelligent being. If this is what AI, for the public is like, just imagine what we’re going to be reporting from E3 in 2020!!
From my point of view, this is the biggest technology news from the big guns in the gaming industry from E3, well done to Microsoft and Peter Molyneux!
What are your views on ‘Milo’? Are you excited by this new technology? Not really bothered? Think it’s already been done before? Let us know.
UPDATE: The Project Natal release date and price have been announced, which means that we’re less than a year away from release and at quite an affordable price too, let us know what you think to these important factors of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 motion control system!
Danny ‘Ender’ Martin has been part of the Zath team from pretty much the very beginning since he met Zath himself at Leeds Met University whilst studying Business IT. He’s an avid gamer and a big film buff. Danny graduated from the University of Bradford with a degree in Computer Animation and SFX and now currently works at one of the biggest UK games developers, which will hopefully see some of his ideas hit the gaming world.