
Kinect + Skype = Video Calling Magic: Tech News and Analysis « - atularora
http://gigaom.com/2011/05/09/kinect-skype-video-calling-magic/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OmMalik+%28GigaOM%3A+Tech%29
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unwind
I see one technical problem with this: Skype is heavily peer-to-peer (I just
learned from Wikipedia that even the "pe" in the name reflects this).

Xbox 360 communications is not, inherently, very open. You cannot randomly
connect an Xbox 360 to another Internet host, you must go through a Microsoft-
maintained gateway. So connecting e.g. an Xbox 360 to a Skype client running
on a PC would not be simple.

Of course MS could choose to provide such gateways and (probably) change
around in the protocol once they own it to make this happen. I'm just pointing
out that it's not as easy as "just do it".

See [http://www.xbox.com/en-
US/Live/EngineeringBlog/072810-Develo...](http://www.xbox.com/en-
US/Live/EngineeringBlog/072810-DevelopersCustomizeLive) for some talk about
the architecture.

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wccrawford
I didn't see it before the article, and I still don't see it. What is so
revolutionary about adding Kinect to a video chat?

The last video shows that it can (somewhat) detect who is talking and react to
that... But unless you're walking around your house and the video can pivot to
follow you, I don't see any real use in that.

