Remember PrimeSense, No? They are the guys behind Microsoft’s motion sensor the Kinect and they have just been acquired by Apple for $345Million. So why should you care about Apple’s acquisition of this Isrealian 3D body sensor technology company and what could it mean for us, the consumer?
We all know Apple is working on its very own television, like mentioned in our previous article there are several issues with the iTV that are causing problems and have been the reason they have delayed the iTV, we know one of them is content and the other one is the way the user interacts with the TV. Apple has always been a company that cares a lot (more then any other company in the world) on how the user interacts with the device and how the overall user experience is. A great solution could be 3D gesture control.
By acquiring PrimeSense Apple has gotten its hands on thousands of gesture control patents and the technology and hardware the company provides, the most interesting one of them is Light Coding which makes depth sensing possible.
PrimeSense’s Light Coding patented technology solutions make 3D depth sensing possible. It works by coding the scene with near-IR light, which is invisible to the human eye. The solution then uses a standard off-the-shelf CMOS image sensor to read the coded light back from the scene. This is the process that enables depth acquisition and what makes PrimeSense solutions so accurate.
This in combination with Apple’s gesture patents could give a clear hint on what is waiting for us when Apple finally reveals the iTV, take a look at this patent (via PatentlyApple) which Apple was granted back in 2011 regarding 3D gestures
Here is a video from PrimeSense showing off its technology, the things that are shown in the video are definitely something we can expect from a future iTV and maybe even on its rumored iWatch
