Software giant Microsoft announced on Friday that it has acquired Canesta, a company that makes 3-D sensor technology for chips. Canesta employs 70 employees and has raised about $70 million and Microsoft acquired the company because its technology would fit into Microsoft’s push toward NUI, a natural user interface.

“Microsoft has long pursued a vision of natural user interface — Canesta has developed some interesting technology for sensing gestures that complements the advances already under way at Microsoft,” Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said in a statement. “Microsoft has a long history of investing in this technology, and this acquisition is just part of that long-term strategy; it is not for any specific product in the future.”

Kinect is used in the Xbox 360 video-game system and it is a new motion sensor that allows users to play by moving around in front of the Kinect camera. Microsoft will start selling Kinect from November 4. Neither Microsoft nor Canesta have disclosed the terms of the deal.

Microsoft’s chief executive, Steven A. Ballmer, recently said in an interview that the company is planning to advance the gesture technology well beyond video games. “I’m excited to be way out in front and want to push the pedal on that,” Ballmer said. Microsoft and its partners could use the technology developed by Canesta to equip PCs, televisions, cars, cellphones and other devices with gesture recognition features.

Taiwan-based Quanta Computer has also invested in Canesta and the company is planning to use the technology to give robots on their assembly lines some visual smarts. “We have a really broad mission to enable everyday devices with the ability to see, and enable natural user interfaces across all kinds of devices,” said James Spare, chief executive of Canesta.

Source:http://www.lanewsmonitor.com/news/Microsoft-Acquires-3-D-Sensor-Technology-Developer-Canesta-1288532274/