Video Kinect + WP7: iPhone Facetime, eat your heart out!

At the E3 conference press conference today, Microsoft officially unveiled "Kinect" formerly known as project Natal to the world.  As I watched the conference with an impromptu audience consisting of a 14 and a 12 year old, all we kept on saying was  "I’m so getting this when it comes out". Mind you they hadn’t even gotten to the games yet! So you ask what does this have to do with phones? I say Video Kinect!

According to the post from our editor earlier and just as logical step since it is compatible with Windows Live Messenger, this will come to Windows phone 7 in the near future if not at launch. What makes it even more appealing is that it transcends the phone (unlike Facetime which is limited to iPhones only) into the living room with Xbox 360 and hopefully a Windows media center embedded HTPC and finally the PC of course through WLM. Add to the recent reports of MS investing in server side compression technologies to ease data congestion woes,  the potential for its availability through 3G networks is real.

Microsoft has not officially announced the support for the feature in WP7 but their competition must quaking in their boots because they have nothing currently to match this. Apple with Facetime and Android with the Qik and Fring solutions come in a distant second.

As the pieces of WP7 continue to fall into place, the hints of the OS turning into a game changer continue to get clearer. I for one can’t wait to finally retire my  trusty old Cingular 8125 and delve into the new great era of Windows Phones.