Why You'll Fall in Love With the Xbox Kinect - Fox News

I just lost 100 calories playing a video game! 

Microsoft's brand-new, much-hyped Kinect for Xbox is finally out -- in all of its motion-controlled glory. Forget the Nintendo Wii. Kinect is sure to be the biggest family-fun hit of the holiday season.

When Microsoft unveiled Kinect two years ago, I wondered to myself: Could a system really abandon the joystick controller and rely on the movement of our bodies to play games? The answer is a resounding yes! 

I've been testing Kinect -- or should I say, kickboxing, dancing, and rafting Kinect -- for about a week now, and I'm more than impressed. Remember how cool it was when you first used Nintendo's Wii controllers? Multiply that impression by a factor of 10 and you come close to the experience of Kinect. 

Kinect isn't a new system. It's an add-on to the existing Microsoft Xbox gaming console, one which plugs into any of the systems. It uses four microphones and three video lenses to locate your body. The setup is fairly simple. Once it scans your body to identify your height and facial features, you're off and running ... or jumping.

Kinect uses microphones to recognize your voice, letting you speak commands and navigate menus. Microsoft is really proud of this feature; I am not impressed. It sounds like a great idea but it's too clunky. Even in a small room Kinect had difficulty recognizing commands such as "Xbox: Play Kinect Adventures" or "Xbox: Sign In." Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I ended up getting frustrated and often gave up, going back to using my arms in midair to navigate menu settings.

Nintendo hit a home run by including Wii Sports in the box with the Wii console. Microsoft took a page from Nintendo's playbook, including a copy of Kinect Adventures -- a series of five incredibly addictive games that are fun for the whole family.

Rally Ball is a lot like dodgeball, Reflex Ridge is an Indiana Jones-styled obstacle course, and Space Pop forces you to pop bubbles in midair. In 20,000 Leaks, you try to keep fish away from your undersea boat; in the amazing River Rush, multiple players control a white water raft through wild river rapids.

But my favorite game for Kinect is from MTV and Harmonix: Dance Central. It tracks your body's movement while you attempt to dance alongside professional dancers to some of today's hottest songs. Notice I said attempt to dance. The way I play this game can only loosely be interpreted as dancing -- let's just say I made sure the shades in my house were drawn before I started. 

If you want to lose weight, Microsoft Kinect has you covered too. Your Shape includes workouts created by Men's Health and Women's Health. I've been doing cardio kickboxing, yoga, and tai chi. While you're exercising you receive feedback from a personal trainer on the screen. And because Kinect is tracking all of your movements, it'll know whether or not you're doing the exercise correctly.

Beware, however, if you're thinking of getting one: Your existing layout may no longer work. You may need to mount your Kinect sensor bar on top of the television for best results. But for many people that's not an option, thanks to modern thin televisions that the sensor bar simply won't sit on. 

My television was too thin for the sensor bar, for example. I had to put it underneath the TV, and that's a problem because Kinect requires about 6 feet of space from the television to where you're standing in order to scan your body from head to toe. I live in a New York City apartment -- it's as small as you've heard such places are -- so the backs of my legs kept hitting my couch. 

I imagine this would be a problem for college kids in a dorm room, as well. My advice is to put your Kinect console in an area where you have plenty of space to move around.

But ignore those few annoyances. Kinect is a major advancement in gaming technology and one that's sure to be on millions of kids' Christmas lists this season. And adults' lists too! 

Clayton Morris is a Fox and Friends host and the tech godfather behind the Gadgets and Games show. Follow Clayton's adventures online on Twitter @ClaytonMorris and by reading his daily updates at his blog.

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Lifting of blogger's story triggers online furor - CNET

A magazine accused of publishing a blogger's story without permission has seen a dramatic rise in the number of its Facebook friends, although they're not all that friendly.

The tale of writer Monica Gaudio hit the Web on Wednesday after she reported that her story, "A Tale of Two Tarts," was apparently lifted and published by the print magazine Cooks Source with her byline, but without her knowledge or any compensation. After tracking down the editor at the magazine, Gaudio asked for an apology on Facebook and in the magazine, as well as a $130 donation to the Columbia School of Journalism.

Instead, she said she received a rather unexpected response from the editor, Judith Griggs, quoted in-part below:

"But honestly Monica, the Web is considered 'public domain' and you should be happy we just didn't "lift" your whole article and put someone else's name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. If you took offense and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me... ALWAYS for free!"

After Gaudio went live on her blog page with details of the transaction, and other blogs picked it up, it didn't take long for the viral nature of the Internet to take hold. Cooks Source's Facebook page, which had only around 100 "friends" beforehand, took on a whole new popularity, though probably not in the way the magazine wanted.

(Credit: Facebook)

From among the more than 3,800 friends who have since "liked" Cook Source's Facebook page in order to vent their comments, many have been telling the magazine just what they think of it, while others have attacked Griggs both personally and professionally. Beyond the Facebook page, stories about the incident have hit top news sources and a host of blog posts.

Faced with the torrent of nasty comments, Griggs or at least someone with access to the magazine's Facebook page, offered a response that just seemed to anger people even further:

"Well, here I am with egg on my face! I did apologize to Monica via email, but apparently it wasn't enough for her. To all of you, thank you for your interest in Cooks Source and Again, to Monica, I am sorry--my bad! You did find a way to get your 'pound of flesh...' we used to have 110 'friends,' we now have 1,870...wow! ...Best to all, Judith"

The frenzy has apparently forced Cooks Source to set up a new Facebook page after claiming that its old one was hacked. The magazine is also cautioning that any posts on its new page considered libelous will be removed.

Beyond the harm to the magazine's reputation, what legal issues does the incident raise? Does Gaudio have a case if she decided to take legal action against Cooks Source?

"The author does have a copyright in her work. That's without question," New York copyright attorney Alex Chachkes told CNET. "The question then is whether the magazine has an argument that their copying is fair use. Fair use is actually a pretty complicated analysis."

But Chachkes took issue with Griggs' claim that anything on the Internet is considered public domain. "It's not correct to say that just because something is on the Internet, it's public domain," he said. "Time Magazine publishes things on the Internet. I don't think anyone's going to say that you can take a Time Magazine article and republish it with or without the byline and then sell it in your own magazine."

Still, Gaudio might face a tough time if she did want to pursue a legal case against the magazine, according to Chachkes. "You know the saying 'Don't make a federal case out of it.' She would have to make a federal case out of it. It would have to be an action of copyright infringement."

Ultimately though, the magazine's trashing on the Internet is likely to be far more damaging than any legal or civil action it might ever face. "You know, the Internet's a funny thing, Chachkes said. "You tell people 'Imagine you're speaking simultaneously to your friends and to your grandmother.' Everything's published to everybody."

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Keith Olbermann is partisan? Say it ain't so! - Washington Times

NATCHITOCHES, La. — Nov. 6, 2010 – Stop the presses: Keith Olbermann is politically biased. It seems that surprising news escaped the notice of his bosses at MSNBC for several years. They only perceived a problem this week, when they learned he’d given money to three Democratic political campaigns.

Olbermann’s suspension is silly and bizarre. News organizations obviously want to preserve the illusion of impartiality. Who’s going to believe a reporter’s story about candidate Jones when we know the reporter gave money to Jones’ opponent, Smith?

But then, who believes that what Olbermann does is news reporting and analysis? The cable news network schedules are full of shows that serve particular political ideologies. So is talk radio. I don’t watch Olbermann, Maddow, Hannity or Huckabee because I want an objective analysis of the day’s events. I watch them because I want their partisan savaging of the other side. Their partisanship is essential to what they do. If I want faux-objective, I’ll mosey on over to CNN to watch their gray men.

If Anderson Cooper is caught handing out political donations, CNN should fire him. If Olbermann hands out donations, it’s the least that he does for liberal Democrats. He can’t afford to buy real access with cash, and the coverage and microphone he provides to Democrats and the scorn he heaps on Republicans are worth more than his measly donations. Not much more – his audience is tiny compared to Bill O’Reilly’s – but it’s better than the $2,400 in each of his donations.

Rachel Maddow waxed sanctimonious last night about this, explaining that MSNBC’s rules show that there’s no real equivalence between that station and FOX. Nonsense. The bosses at Fox simply realize that if you’re going to hand a partisan talking-head a microphone, you may as well let him play politics. They certainly had no illusions about the impartiality of Palin and Huckabee when they hired them. It would be idiotic to punish them for political activity when you hired them for their political activity.

Likewise it seems idiotic to suspend Olbermann for doing with money what he does with his mouth. But perhaps it’s not. If I were a cynical conspiracy theorist, I’d wonder whether they suspended him to improve his numbers when he comes back. Perhaps they wanted to take up Maddow’s sanctimonious claim about their status as a real news channel. Perhaps they want to establish some centrist street-cred with the new Congress and a TV audience that seems less enamored of Obama’s change.

Perhaps after seeing the rise in Juan Williams’ profile after his firing from NPR, Olbermann asked for the suspension himself.  I doubt it will work - he isn’t really very funny, interesting or smart – but I look forward to his return to the airwaves. Maybe he can get a gig with NPR.

James Picht teaches economics at the Louisiana Scholars' College in Natchitoches, La. From the age of 6, he always knew what he wanted to be. Economist wasn't it. But after accidentally falling in to it, he found that he liked it. Now he also likes raising his two children, being a husband to Lisa and taking pictures of trees in the middle of the night.

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