Kinect Creators Making PC Controller (MSFT)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/01/03/businessinsider-kinect-creators-making-pc-controller-2011-1.DTL

Matt Rosoff, provided by
Business Insider January 3, 2011 04:00 AM Copyright Business Insider. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

It looks like a motion-controlled interface is coming to the PC next year--but not from Microsoft.

PrimeSense, the privately held Israeli company that licensed core Kinect technology to Microsoft, announced that it is teaming up with PC and peripheral maker Asus to create a similar device for the PC.

It's called Wavi Xtion, and the companies are showing it off at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. The companies imagine it being used not for games, but for browsing multimedia content and accessing the Internet and social networks--basically, the main things consumers use their PCs for.

There will also be APIs for third-party developers and a Wavi Xtion store where developers can sell motion-controlled apps.

The system will launch in the second quarter, but the companies haven't released pricing info yet.

Last month, a Korean game developer claimed that Microsoft was working on a version of Kinect for the PC, but Microsoft hasn't confirmed any such plans. Hackers figured out how to hook a Kinect up to a Windows PC almost immediately, and have come up with some pretty interesting applications.