Some ideas are interesting but not really thought out. A new feature being described in a patent from Microsoft indicates that your Kinect camera may be the new weapon in the war against under-age viewing of mature content.
Allegedly, this patent describes a process whereby the size of a person dictates what he/she can watch. Ergo, if you're small, then you are a 'child' and not permitted to watch anything outside of the general audience bracket. Obviously, this is a bit limited as there are many people in the world who may resemble an under-age child while not actually existing as one.
You'll be able to disable it, of course, but it does make me think of situations where a legal dwarf, for instance, might walk into the room to watch his favourite episode of 24 and be told by Xbox, "Sorry, you're too small to watch this, kiddo!"
To make things worse, Kinect will even tone down content if someone of small stature walks into the room halfway into a program. Imagine your dismay as your Xbox detects your shrunken Granny entering the home theatre and decides to interrupt your pay-per-view title fight by changing over to 'Elmo's Magic Kingdom!' Oh the joys!
It's an interesting idea and I can see what they (Microsoft) are trying to do, but ultimately, it's a feature only to be employed by the most incompetent of parents as that type of automation is just not pragmatic unless you spent time in your twenties playing nailgun roulette...and let's be honest - if a parent needs that kind of assistance, they've probably bought their 7-year-old son a brand new copy of Modern Warfare to play with anyway.
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