Microsoft are hard at work trying to replicate the huge success of Kinect on a broader range of devices. The motion-sensitive Kinect has worked very well for gaming and now Microsoft want to push it into other devices and more specifically to mobile devices. A pair of laptops were recently spottedsporting Kinect sensors on the front facing upper edge of the screen where the web cam would traditionally be.
The prototypes were confirmed by a Microsoft spokesperson who said they were indeed testing Kinect on laptops and that the prototypes seen were indeed genuine. Microsoft would like to see Kinect on more devices but the bigger question at the moment is not getting Kinect onto laptops and other mobile devices but rather whether this would even be practical. It makes sense to have motion sensors on a gaming device but it does not make much sense for the same to be featured on say a laptop that already has a trackpad and is within easy reach for operation.
What may be of more practical use would be Kinect on TV, something that Microsoft are still experimenting with. Whichever way the practicality goes, Microsoft will be more keen on licensing the software to third parties to create user cases in much the same way as it has done with its Windows OS. They may not spend too much time trying to figure out how and why the technology should be incorporated into devices but it may be possible that manufacturers and developers may have some ideas if at all the software becomes available to them.
