*dramatic music* What could those engineers at Microsoft be up to? The Q3 results for the company’s financial performance are in, and we have noticed what may have gone unnoticed!

Aside from the expected (Halo: Reach raking in $350 million in two weeks, 2.8 million Xbox 360 consoles selling in the three month period, etc.), it was revealed that the Xbox brand was responsible for nearly a quarter of the 1.8 billion revenue that the Entertainment & Devices division of Microsoft raked in.

What was even more interesting was the fact that in the past 3 months, R&D expenses had risen significantly. This could mean many things.

Microsoft’s motion sensing Kinect peripheral is on the way, and it could be that the costs were incurred developing and finalizing the hardware. What makes this an unlikely scenario is that R&D costs as this significant cannot be attributed to a product that has been finalized, nearly finished and is now being marketed to the masses. It could mean that Microsoft has some fancy new technology on the way. Could it be a slimmer console? 3D display tech? The 3rd Xbox? Who knows. What we do know is that a lot of money was recently blown developing something. And we’ll be keeping an eye on the Q4 reports to see if there really is something cooking up there in Redmond.

http://techspotlight.net/news/microsoft-rd-burns-65-million-in-three-months-on-something-unknown

I'm going with Kinect related development. The system would have been under heavy development 3 months ago considering that the system isn't going to be released until over a month after this last financial report. I don't know how many months out they start production, but at my company we work on the devices straight into the first production run (we aren't production oriented though).

Also, R&D could be up due to Kinect system software. From APIs for developers or trying new techniques. It was revealed not to long ago that they changed the software to use the neck as the anchor point of the body. They could be improving motion tracking, voice recognition, and a whole host of software related features.

Either way, not to interesting until semi-legitimate rumors start spreading about some new item from Microsoft.

Microsoft Acquires Canesta; NUI Coming In Next Windows, Xbox?

The big news for the day comes in the form of Canesta coming to terms of agreement where their products, software, chip designs and intellectual properties are being acquired by Microsoft. The acquisition spells a step forward in the evolution of user interfaces, as Canesta focuses on elevating productivity for natural user interfaces (NUI), much in the same way that Kinect allows for controller-free gaming.

Jim Spare, Canesta president and CEO of Canesta commented about the new acquisition, saying…

“This is very exciting news for the industry. There is little question that within the next decade we will see natural user interfaces become common for input across all devices. With Microsoft’s breadth of scope from enterprise to consumer products, market presence, and commitment to NUI, we are confident that our technology will see wide adoption across many applications that embody the full potential of the technology.”

The technology that Microsoft plans to employ in the near future isn’t just a portico of technological terms; Canesta is actually all about cutting edge software, firmware and hardware technology that will make natural user interfacing both easier, more streamlined and convenient enough to make it a viable commercial alternative to the standard GUIs in today’s generation of technology. In other words, the next Windows or Xbox gaming console could be entirely focused on NUI tech that makes interactivity both fluent and more user-friendly.

The real question, however, is how will this affect Kinect in the long term and will Microsoft pull an Xbox 1 with Kinect if they see an opportunity to break through with a new form of interactivity now that they have Canesta’s tech in their services?

Regardless, the acquisition definitely spells good news for technocrats and sci-fi geeks who really want to do some day-in and day-out Minority Report hand-ballet. We’ll definitely keep you posted on what comes of it. For more information on Canesta and their products, be sure to visit the Official Website.

Xbox 720 confirmed!

E3 2011 ... BELIEVE!

Its an investment to the church of Scientology in an atempt to reach level 8 Operating Thetan. Rumors has it you can see the future and travel through time like Kevin Butler.

Could it.....could it possibly be a Xbox handheld?

I'm going with, Kinect is seeing an upgrade. So there will be this one, and then an upgraded one later on.

Additionally, it is being placed INSIDE the 360. :P

AND...they're developing controllers for it.

The Xbox handheld just released in Europe. It is called Windows phone 7 series.

It's Xbox 720 confirmed! Yesssssssssss!

Its probably Microsoft LightSpace

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/default.aspx?id=139046