Microsoft Kinect to create interactive Sesame Street episodes (VIDEO)
Sesame Street Live characters (L-R), Ernie, Bert, Elmo, Abby Cadabby, Zoe and Cookie Monster celebrate the renaming of the corner of 31st Street and Eighth Avenue to ‘Sesame Street’ outside Madison Square Garden in New York. Sesame Street’s YouTube channel was taken offline October 17, 2011, after being hit by hackers that uploaded porn videos.
The makers of Sesame Street have teamed up with Microsoft to develop interactive episodes of the children's TV show.
Microsoft showed off the first results of the collaboration at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last night.
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In its demonstration (video below), a girl played catch with Grover and Cookie Monster via a TV set fitted with Microsoft's Kinect motion-sensing device; objects she pretended to throw appeared on screen, and the puppets prompted her to take part when she refused to play.
Microsoft says it is the first time viewers have been able to "physically and vocally impact a TV show."
For the Sesame Workshop, the collaboration was a "natural conversation," chief content and distribution officer Terry Fitzpatrick told the BBC:
"For a pre-schooler having to deal with a physical controller can be very challenging. Movement is natural to them and getting up and off the couch and active is also something we are very interested in encouraging."
Microsoft is also working with Disney and National Geographic on other "two-way TV" projects using Kinect, which uses motion and audio sensors to track and respond to users' commands.