Apple has recently bought a 3-D-sensor company that helped build Microsoft’s xbox motion-control system known as Kinect, this is stirring curiosity regarding what the tech giant could be up to behind closed doors in Cupertino.Prime Sense is an Israel-based company that specializes its focus on sensors that permit users to interact with mobile devices like tablets and smart phones by a simple wave of their hands.
The company’s technology was used to facilitate and produce Kinects, which is an extension for the Xbox 360 in 2010 as a way for the gamers to put down the controller and use their bodies and voices to play the games. Additionally it has been incorporated into the new Xbox One console, allowing the users to control movies and other different media with their voices.
Apple had supposedly been in negotiations with Prime Sense since July. The deal was sealed for a reported $360 million.
A statement was issued by Apple in an answer to the queries resulted in the same “non-confirmation confirmation” it has released after past acquisitions.
“Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” the statement says.
Prime Sense has established the purchase but has not offered any further details. The purchase, has of course, straight away spurred supposition about what Apple might have in mind.
“Apple could be thinking a number of things, from gaming on iPads to a way to interact with Apple TV or the rumored TV set,” said Carolina, a tech analyst with Gartner Research.
She commented she doubts Apple might be working on a dedicated gaming device. Instead, she speculated, that the company could be most likely be looking at a way to connect multiple devices and control them at the same time.
“Gesture certainly has a place in complementing touch and voice as a way to interact with different devices,” she said. “Gesture could be particularly useful in interacting with different screens in the home.”
The less exciting possibility is that we’ll never see a product or feature as a direct result of the buyout.
“Apple has done a series of acquisitions that we have not seen through as far as a practical implementation of the technology,” Milanesi said.
But as the news spread on Monday, it was the possibility of the long-awaited Apple TV set that most were thinking about. Apple-centric blog 9to5 Mac reported in September that Apple was in testing the motion-sensor technology for the television products.
To a several few, the Prime Sense purchase signals that Apple is working on something truly different and new. The television has allegedly been in the lab for years, and the company is extensively expected to be to be coming out with a smart watch in the not-too-distant future.
But incremental upgrades to its popular iPhone and iPad lines in recent years have led some observers to say that the company has lost its ability for groundbreaking novelties. That’s a notion Milanesi rejects.
“To think that Apple is not innovating just because we do not see a new category of product hitting the market is quite shortsighted,” she said.
