Nifty "Kinect For Media Center" Application Does Exactly What You'd Expect

Posted 02/15/2012 at 11:47am | by Brad Chacos

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Have you ever been browsing through your Windows Media Center library, stopped on your significant other's stockpile of Jersey Shore episodes, and wave your hands dismissively before continuing on to Netflix? Some new tech lets that disgusted gesture alone speed you away from Snooki's yawn-inducing antics. The straightforwardly named "Kinect for Media Center" software taps into Kinect for Windows and adds both voice and gesture controls to your Media Center browsing experience.

The software supports add-ins (like Netflix and Heatwave) as efficiently as it does the normal Media Center interface, as you can see in the demo video above. It doesn't include support for the 360 or any other Media Center extender, however. A whole range of motion and voice controls let you boss your PC around -- all of which can be seen at the Kinect for Media Center web page -- and "advanced Voice features" keep audio coming from your speakers from accidentally controlling Media Center. The speed of your gestures determines the velocity of the UI movement, too. Not too shabby, if you're into the "arm-swinging, sweet-talking" control thing.

If you are into it, you'll need a PC with a dual-core, 2.66 GHz processor, at least 2GB of RAM (although 4GB is better), Kinect for Windows -- duh -- and a copy of the Kinect for Media Center software, which developer Brad Mauk is selling for $7 a pop.

So, does the thought of controlling Media Center with your arms and mouth interest you? Would you be likely to pick this up if you used a dedicated HTPC with your TV?

Thanks to Engadget for pointing this out!