Microsoft announced their answer to the Wii, called Natal, at the recent E3 conference. Natal goes beyond the Wii in that you don't need any controllers. The cameras in the unit detect the movement of your body and reacts accordingly. So you can punch and kick for a fighting game or pretend you have a steering wheel in your hands for a driving game. It has face recognition and voice recognition as well so it can automatically log you in and have a conversation with you. It should make for some very interesting games, but can also be used for controlling interfaces with just the movement of your hands.
Natal was announced as a peripheral for the Xbox 360, but Bill Gates just indicated that they will make Natal available for PC's as well. That would not only make for great games, but it could be used to control a media center computer, interact with people in a Second Life like system, control a computer from across the room, or a million other possibilities.
Do you remember the futuristic man-computer interface in Minority Report? Natal would not only let you do everything that Tom Cruise did (sans the transparent screen), but actually be better, because it doesn't require the user to wear gloves. It's another case of reality catching up with science fiction faster than anyone thought.
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