"Sesame Street" to become first interactive TV show

Microsoft’s Kinect technology could be a game-changer for the content industry.

Microsoft has paired with the classic children's show, "Sesame Street," to create what they called the first "two-way" television experience. It worked like this: a child watches the show, and is prompted by characters like Grover, Elmo and Cookie Monster to take an action. In the demonstration, a little girl threw coconuts into a box. Grover caught them, and counted each one. Then, little Ainsley was actually able to jump into the scene and prance around. This strikes me as an entirely new way of experiencing television -- personal, interactive and engaging. Sesame Street is the perfect place to start. Young children like to talk to the television, and won't find anything odd about being inside the screen, I suspect. And while this may not be the most sophisticated use of the technology, the technology itself shows a stunning sophistication in breaking the fourth wall of the viewing experience.