Since having a stroke 12 years ago, this woman lost the ability to communicate through typing -- until her son designed a Microsoft Kinect-based email system.

The saintly man in question (who runs dadhoc.com) is already hard at work on updates, with the hope of expanding the technology to help others.

[geekwire]

Better than parking in the Whomping Willow, but still. Ten points from Griffindor.

In other wizard news, the demo for Harry Potter Kinect drops today, if you feel up to some full-body Xbox spellcasting.

[geeksaresexy]

The creators of Fable: The Journey talk about the plot, the characters, and what it's like to design a Kinect game from the ground up.

Fable has always been a deeply flawed series, with Fable III being essentially broken and incomplete. Will The Journey actually deliver on the "revolutionary promises" Lionhead is so infamous for blundering?

[gamefreaks]

The Gamescom trailer for Kinect/Wii U motion-brawler Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth.

Maybe someday we'll get the Avengers game we both need and deserve. In the meantime, there's always Marvel vs. Capcom.

[cbm]

Prepare for flail-ure with DragonBall Z for Kinect. There's just enough gameplay here to be concerned by the control scheme, and for some reason, they pronounce Saiyan as "Sy-on." Come on, people. You know what happened to Ong the Ovatar.

[namcobandai]

Here's the debut trailer for Microsoft's recently-announced Harry Potter Kinect, which takes players inside Hogwarts School and looks a lot less embarrassing than Kinect Star Wars.

The game's Kinect features include voice-activated spellcasting and the ability to create a custom character by scanning your face with the Kinect sensor instead of playing as Harry, Hermione or Ron.

In addition to playing through major scenes from the Harry Potter series, players will also be able to join their friends for player-vs-player and co-op minigames, including Quidditch and wizard duels.

Harry Potter Kinect is due out this fall from Microsoft, Warner Bros. and GoldenEye Reloaded developer Eurocom.

[toplessrobot.]

Microsoft is reportedly considering offering a deeply discounted Xbox 360 and Kinect bundle to customers who are willing to take on a two-year Xbox Live subscription.

The bundle would cost a paltry $100 up front, with subscription fees of $15/mo, and would include Xbox Live Gold service and "various types of streaming content," The Verge reports.

The contracts would reportedly also have an early termination fee, much like the cell contracts that seemingly inspired this subsidized Xbox package.

The total cost would add up to roughly $460 over that two-year period.

Microsoft hasn't commented on the rumor.

[joystiq.]