What is XBox Kinect?

Other day I was talking to friends and family about XBox Kinect. All of a sudden I got circled with questions like,

• What is XBox Kinect?
• How does XBox Kinect work?
• Do I need to buy new XBox for XBox Kinect to work?
• Do I need to buy new games for XBox Kinect?

and there were more questions. So I thought of writing little series of posts on this new phneomenon known as XBox Kinect.

What is XBox Kinect?

In simple terms, XBox Kinect is a new piece of hardware that has motion and voice recognition sensors. In layman terms, XBox Kinect has set of digital cameras and highly sensitive microphones that track motion and voice patterns around it. Based on the changes in motion and voice, Kinect sends signals to your XBox 360 console to take actions. You can think of XBox Kinect as a controller that you do not have to hold in your hand and press buttons to play your XBox games. XBox Kinect translates your physical motion changes, facial expression changes and voice commans into actions for XBox console.

I hope this simple explanation of XBox Kinect answers some of the very basic questions everybody might have about this new technology.