Buried in a lengthy IGN discussion with Panasonic on HDTV is an admittedly "out-there" question on integrating the Revolution's "freestyle" control method into sets. Excerpt follows:
IGN: This might be a little bit of an out-there question, but one of the videogame giants, Nintendo has a new system called the Revolution that will be coming out this year. The big gimmick with this system is that it has this controller that talks to two motion sensors on the TV, and the controller then becomes an extension of your arm. The motion sensors detect all the motions that your arm is making, and they translate that to the game. We were thinking about this, and wondered why we needed to have these motion sensors hung on the TV, and wouldn't it be great if manufacturers were integrating some sort of technology like this. Have you guys been looking at any sort of technology like this? Beyond that, what do you think is the next big feature for these types of TVs other than just making the picture a little prettier?
Jeff Cove: What you describe is very cool. We actually have a department in my group that looks at new user interfaces. We are always looking for new ways to navigate. Especially if you are trying to get new content, searching, rather than just browsing, is what's going to become really important. User interface is a whole important world for us. What you describe is a pretty interesting way of doing it. I'd like to see it. It might be cool.