Future of health care could get helping hand from Kinect avatars

Microsoft feels it possible to achieve both audience engagement and social advocacy through its NUads service enabled by Kinect. While its value for advertisers has been more readily accepted, the tech colossus thinks it’s also suited for taking remote health care a step ahead. This week, the company launched its Kinect-enabled advertising platform. It is an app with unlimited possibilities. Want to test its interactivity? Just say "Xbox, More," and all the info, you need about anything, is all yours. An ad for Toyota might allow the user to say “Xbox Near Me” and find nearby Toyota dealerships. Call it irresistible, but one even becomes able to program his/her own DVR and get digital movie tickets and more using the service.

Kinect avatars

However, Microsoft has mainstream computing and health care aspects of the society more in its mind than keeping Kinect sensor strictly for gaming, though it is initially intended more for the for the Xbox 360 game console. So, the new Kinect-avatar uses its own good old motion sensor combined with camera and microphone. All these go to create cartoon representations of people that can interact with one another in a virtual space. Their facial expressions and motions seem almost realistic. Their eyes, eyebrows, face and mouth can tell a trained practitioner of medicine about the problems they might be facing.

For example, in the image above, one woman in a conferencing room looks like having some sort of discomfort. Her pains or problems can be immediately attended to by the doctor. That is indeed a great idea for health care. It carries with it the advantage of examining a person in detail whenever one wants. One can go back and when he wants to and check the computerized screen from every angle, not just the person speaking in a conferencing room. If some issue is detected, it can be followed up. In rural areas, where reach is a problem, this new conferencing idea can really pay-off. The new application has been demonstrated and explained at the Pacific health summit in Seattle. It has drawn some attention of the participants. However, advertisers are simply baying to lap-up the app before it goes to the health care industry.

Via: SlashGear/GeekWire