Next New Thing - Gesture Technology

Nintendo's Wii is about to become seriously old school. On Friday Microsoft said that it was buying Canesta, a small Silicon Valley company that specializes in gesture-recognition technology. The technology uses depth perceiving video cameras that see a user's gestures and facial expressions and translates them into computer commands - similar to systems shown in movies like “Minority Report.” The technology will likely have impact far beyond video games like xBox and become integral to many other aspects of daily life. Here's more from Ashlee Vance at NYTimes.

See a demo video of Canesta's gesture recognition technology here.