This is more than a controllerless remote control. The problem with many reviews on the Kinect actually don't highlight the complexity and the significance of the technology. This is the dawning of the Star Trek Enterprise "sensor array". This is not a webcam, although it has twin cameras. This is an infrared 3D sensor. The best way to understand how it works is to use the analogy of the pinscreen. These are the boxes with the sliding metal or plastic pins that leave an impression in relief of a hand or face, or indeed, any object placed in the box. Basically, what happens is that an infrared transponder fires millions of infrared beams and the resulting reflections are visualised on the TV screen. What this means is that Kinect is describing it's environment by shooting out millions and millions of infrared beams.
Obviously, how well it does this depends on the ability of the receivers to collect the reflection information, the power of the computer processor and the programming of the software. All of these are in their infancy and it may be that IR is not the best way of sensing the environment. Perhaps future sensors will include UV sensors as well as IR and the cameras.
Hopefully, it's now possible to understand that the Playstation Move with it's webcam/eye toy and the gyroscopic sensors, glowing bulb and acceleration sensors is pretty good technologically, the Kinect is in a league of its own. This for me is where Microsoft has let itself down with its marketing. I think it needs to focus on explaining the technology and the significance of it not only to gaming, but to the world in general. (Of course, MS bought it in, but they've developed the software operation in house)