When the Kinect for Xbox 360 was announced I was extremely excited for controller less gaming. But it wasn’t until today that I started thinking of the possibilities and applications of this relatively young device. I’m not talking about the expected uses such as dancing and playing sports, I am talking real world applications, everyday kind of stuff..

While watching the news this morning I realized that the Kinect along with specialized software would be excellent for weather men/women. Instead of having to use the small remote, they could just use gesture control via Kinect to circle areas, zoom in and out, and select storm systems on the green screen map. I can see this adding a simpler more user friendly way of forecasting.
Another good use of the Kinects technology would be to utilize its facial recognition ability. This could be applied to door locks, security monitoring (especially with Kinects 3D camera) that could even be used to lock down a room if a face enters the room that is not authorized.
The last possibility i am going to talk about is that for deaf and hearing impaired. Using Kinnects recently developed finger tracking, a program could be written to translate sign language to an audible language for easier conversing.

The Kinect is undoubtedly a revolution in video games, but I see at as a revolution for more than living room fun. The Kinect offers up endless fun and functionality, its only a matter of time until it is implented in places other than next to your TV.