Skip to footer

Confirmed: Apple buys 3-D tech company PrimeSense

After months of speculation, Apple and PrimeSense confirm a deal. Sources say the price hit upwards of $350 million.

|
Vince Bucci/AP Images for Xbox
Actor Rich Sommer played Kinect on Xbox 360 at the Xbox booth during the E3 2010 conference in Los Angeles June 15. PrimeSense created the 3-D sensing technology that powered the first round of Kinect devices.

Apple could be getting into the 3-D sensor game. 

Following rumors last week that guessed Apple had bought Israeli 3-D tech company PrimeSense, Apple and PrimeSense both confirmed the sale, though the price and reasoning behind the move is yet to be officially revealed.

According to AllThingsD, Apple confirmed Sunday that it had bought PrimeSense, the company behind Microsoft's Kinect sensor device, only offering, “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans” as an explanation. A spokewoman for PrimeSense followed up with a similar response: “We can confirm the deal with Apple. Further than that, we cannot comment at this stage.”

Talks of the deal were first reported by Israeli website Calcalist in July, corroborated Sunday by Globes, another Israeli financial website. These sources claimed the sale was made for about $350 million, though neither company confirmed the price. If true, this would mean each of the five start-up founders would make $50 million to $85 million from the sale.

Though Apple and PrimeSense are mum on the deal, rumors and speculation of what this could mean for the iPhone-maker have been swirling for days.

AllThingsD adds that PrimeSense has developed more compact and device-specific software, which could point to applications for mobile devices. In October 2011, Apple filed a patent for “Real Time Video Process Control Using Gestures,” which could “throw” content from device to device, according to the BBC. The Wall Street Journal points out that adding 3-D technology could be a key feature in the long-rumored Apple iTV set.

This isn’t the first Israeli tech acquisition lately either – Apple bought flash memory controller maker Anobot last year for more than $500 million, and Google bought route-mapping start-up Waze for a reported $1.1 billion. This lines up with the recent start-up boom in the Middle East, specifically Israel where the New York Times reports that of the 70 Israeli companies listed in the Nasdaq, more than a third are technology companies.

Microsoft now uses in-house 3-D technology for the Kinect device, but that hasn’t damped PrimeSense’s reach. The company’s products are in more than 24 million devices worldwide. Looks like 3-D technology, no matter in whose hands, is on the horizon.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Confirmed: Apple buys 3-D tech company PrimeSense
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2013/1125/Confirmed-Apple-buys-3-D-tech-company-PrimeSense
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe