After several months of rumored acquisition negotiations, Apple has completed the purchase of Israel-based Kinect inventor PrimeSense for a price of around $360 million, according to AllThingsD’s sources. A previous report claimed that the iPhone maker paid $345 million for the company. Apple has not provided further specifics on the deal or its plans for the newly acquired technology, offering a standard comment.
“Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time,” Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said. “and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”
Speculation about Apple’s plans for the PrimeSense technology abounds, from integration of a Kinect-like sensor in future devices that will have entertainment purposes — such as the rumored TV set the company has supposedly been working for a few years — to use of the technology in mobile devices including smartwatches, another product category Apple is rumored to tackle in the future. In addition to the Kinect, PrimeSense has worked on sensors that are more compact than the original sensor first used by Microsoft, and that could be used in future mobile devices, AllThingsD says.
The second-generation Kinect peripheral which comes bundled with the newly launched Xbox One uses Microsoft’s own sensor technology.
