As the end of the year approached, rumors abound that the next generation of consoles is right around the corner. Adding fuel to that inferno are some tidbits (from dubiously unnamed "sources") about the next iteration of Microsoft's Kinect—for now known as "Kinect 2."
Eurogamer reports that the new Kinect will be able to read your lips, interpret your facial expressions and tone of voice, and tell which direction you're facing. The improvements will in part come from bypassing the USB connectors used by the current Kinect device, since they apparently set a pretty steep limit on the amount of data the Kinect can send to your system.
Kinect 2 will "be cabled straight through on any number of technologies that just take phenomenally high res data straight to the main processor and straight to the main RAM and ask, what do you want to do with it?" Eurogamer's source said. So it will be smarter, faster and more accurate—and it will come bundled with every new console. All they'll need in that case is some good games, a feature the current version of Kinect is unfortunately lacking (barring a few gems—what up, Child of Eden!).
