"Canvas for a new kind of creative expression", "unique technological sculpture", "the cube is community". All those buzz phrases make it feel like it's an april fools ad parody.
Any intended positive effect of this project is nullified by having a "senior marketing director" stand in front of it, emit a bunch of pointless superlatives, and take credit. Nerd cool factor approaches zero.
A 3 minute video of all the cool interactions we spent so much time attempting to visualize ourselves would have been all that was needed. Then a 5 second explanation of how it was done at the end. Something like this needs all killer no filler.
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The Kinects can read up to three people on each side, and you can see others through the Cube, which acts as a portal, virtually connecting people who are separated in physical space.
http://www.wired.com/2008/11/eye-contact-tra/
I would expect this to be a hit in Japan where shyness is apparently a taller hurdle to overcome than most of western social norms.
People connected in space... can dance together...
... by being on opposite sides of an opaque obelisk. Or, you know, you could actually dance together, in actual physical contact, actually looking at each other, rather than some laggy, pointless, abstract acid-trip-inspired video game (which uses more computing power and electrical power than the median US household practically owns).
I don't get the negativity. I've seen the Cube - currently installed at EMP museum - it's a pretty cool art project.
Is it pointless? Yes, but it doesn't have to have a point. It's simply cool way to "transform" you from the meatspace into the "cube space" using modern technology.
I think the hate is the result of how hard they are trying to sell it. My subjective analysis: It is clearly awesome tech, but the obviously high production value of the video detracts from viewers' inclination to appreciate the project.
I suspect the ratio of marketing budget to project budget might be a good informal indicator of this effect. Or maybe it's just an aversion to anything big-budget?
Leave it Microsoft to "innovate" by creating a non-product which purports to connect people who are dancing by...putting a giant Microsoft product between them so they can't see each other. They say it is "virtually connecting people who are separated in physical space". Is it only me who finds this uproariously funny? It's not "virtually connecting" anything! It's putting a big cube in between them. Which separates them. And people are not "separated" in the way they are saying by physical space...since people can see.
I know, I know, it's just a toy to play with, but the way they describe it is so tone-deaf.
The marketing speak from Microsoft is pretty obviously influenced by Steve Jobs keynote references to Apple products living at the "intersection of technology and liberal arts" - http://i.imgur.com/XvT8a.jpg
Not sure for whom this Cube is made. If it's for regular people to dancing together, why there is no regular forks in the video to say something, if it's for artists, why there is no single piece of artwork presented, if it's for tech junkies, well, just show me the codes!
They probably spent 3-6 months on this. To me it comes across like an "innovation center" put together by building a project team out of different skill sets and giving them some leash.
I'm not sure how this fits into the mobile first or cloud first strategy however. The cube, while I suppose with a team of engineers could be moved and re-displayed, isn't "mobile" at all.
Seriously... I bumped into one of the guys on the opening night. He never said anything about "strategy", only "art". Decibel fest was exactly right place for the cube.
I'm not saying the team doesn't have its own mission, I was pondering how things like the Cube, which is being promoted within the Microsoft brand, fits into their corporate strategy. Its a valid question to ask when its clear they won't consider this project a source of revenue generation in any future timeline.
