It has been a long time since Milo’s first appearance at E3 2009. Hopes that Milo would make an appearance during Microsoft’s E3 2010 press conference last month were dashed when Molyneux’s virtual child prodigy was a no-show. Ever since that time, we have heard conflicting reports about Milo’s fate. Today, those rumors can be put to rest.
Milo is a virtual boy that was created by Peter Molyneux for the Kinect for Xbox 360. He was designed to demonstrate what the Kinect is capable of. During the Microsoft E3 2009 press conference, Milo was unvieled in a video demonstration that showed him recognizing a drawing that was created and shown to him and seemingly having full blown conversations with the person that was interacting with him.
According to Kotaku via the Official TEDGlobal 2010 Twitter page, “Peter Molyneux appeared on stage today at the TEDGlobal 2010 to show off Milo, the virtual boy for Microsoft"s Kinect that failed to make an appearance at E3 2010.” The demo that was shown wasn’t pre-recorded as it was during Microsoft’s E3 2009 press conference. Molyneux invited someone on stage to help him demonstrate Milo live.
While demonstrating Milo, Molyneux and his assistant taught Milo several new tricks including how to skip rocks and how to clean his room. Milo even expressed sadness about one of the things that he had done. Molyneux even went as far as to ask Milo to crush a small snail. After pondering the action for a moment, Milo did proceed to follow Molyneux’s instruction. Molyneux concluded the demonstration with the following statement: “I love these revolutions and I love the future that Milo brings.” We may not have seen much of him, but now we can at least be sure that Milo is alive and well.
TED has not, at the time of writing, put the footage online, so here"s a quick reminder of the original E3 2009 demo of Milo: