Update: this allows the same type of interfaces to happen in KinEmote TVs that touch screens enabled on mobile phones. No more having a fixed set of hardware buttons that can’t change from the day you buy your TV. No more TV remotes crowded with so many unused features that you can’t find the few features you do use. Yes to pinch to zoom on TV, even though you’re across the room sitting on the sofa.
Not that all these things are going to happen right away or even in the short term, just that these are the things this hack makes possible.
KinEmote uses Kinect to Control Boxee Using Hand Gestures:
A hack called KinEmote that allows the users of a Boxee or XBMC media portal to use the Kinect or any other OpenNI camera that for gesture controls. The controls using the Kinect allow you to have full control over all functions of the media player.
This is a big innovation, in that it allows hardware controller devices for TVs to start evolving at the speed of software. Remote controls are one of the big bottlenecks in modernizing television.