Microsoft Buys Motion-Detection Technology 65
DaMan1970 writes with news that Microsoft has purchased 3DV Systems, a company that specializes in motion detection technology. When early reports of this deal appeared last week, it led to speculation that this could be part of Microsoft's plans for future gaming technology. 3DV itself has been focused on the gaming market. "Now that graphics have become so advanced, it explains, the key to making a real difference lies in how you can control the game. The ZCam lets players control the game using body gestures alone, rather as PlayStation's EyeToy does, or Microsoft's Vision or Nintendo's Wii. 3DV Systems argues that its system is better than these, adding that you don't have to wear anything."
Re:Microsoft buys technology rather than develops (Score:1, Interesting)
Well... kind of.
Microsoft do develop a lot of technology on their own, through their research division. However, none of that ever ends up in a shipping product, because it was developed in complete isolation with no regard as to whether or not the technology might actually be useful.
The only technology in a shipping product that Microsoft develop themselves tends to be re-implementations of existing technology - stuff like the Windows NT kernel (they bought the team that developed VMS, and had them re-implement it), or the .NET framework (basically a re-implementation of Java tied heavily to the Windows platform).