Nov 3 2010
Microsoft will acquire Canesta, a California-based company developing sensing technologies for three-dimension applications, for an undisclosed price by the end of 2010. Canesta has 44 granted patents, which describe the company’s advancements in natural user interfaces (NUI), such as Kinect owned by Microsoft.
Carlysle Venture Partners, Honda and Venrock had funded $60 million for the formation of Canesta in 1999. Honda prepares to employ the technology of Canesta in its upcoming vehicles to sense and evade obstructions.
Microsoft’s strategic acquisition will cover the products and technology of Canesta and will help in the advancement of NUIs in its Kinect and its upcoming operating system Windows 8. The company has already acquired Canesta’s solo chip CMOS three-dimensional sensors for its Xbox 360 devices.
The CMOS three-dimensional sensor chips can provide ultra-grained, three-dimensional sensitivity to a variety of applications. Using the chips, the products can sense the movements and actions of objects and persons. The president and chief executive officer of Canesta, Jim Spare commented that the acquisition is good news for the whole industry. He also predicted that all devices would use NUIs as input. Microsoft’s focus on NUIs and its market presence from consumer products to enterprise would allow Canesta’s technology to be used in various applications, he added.
Source: http://canesta.com