<story><title>The iPhone X’s notch is basically a Kinect</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/9/17/16315510/iphone-x-notch-kinect-apple-primesense-microsoft</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>supernumerary</author><text>Fun story... In December 2012 I bought a Prime Sense Carmine, The Kinect for near-distance objects like a face ... mostly to play around with Faceshift (&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;faceshift.com&amp;#x2F;studio&amp;#x2F;2015.2&amp;#x2F;introduction.html#introduction&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;faceshift.com&amp;#x2F;studio&amp;#x2F;2015.2&amp;#x2F;introduction.html#introdu...&lt;/a&gt;) and (&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cs.ubc.ca&amp;#x2F;~chyma&amp;#x2F;publications&amp;#x2F;ur&amp;#x2F;2015_ur_paper.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cs.ubc.ca&amp;#x2F;~chyma&amp;#x2F;publications&amp;#x2F;ur&amp;#x2F;2015_ur_paper.pd...&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;p&gt;Apple announced its purchase shortly thereafter and  the Carmine got yanked from public sale ... thereafter Carmines were selling at a premium on Ebay, I suppose for competitors to reverse engineer.&lt;p&gt;Been waiting for this to crop up in an Apple product...&lt;p&gt;Incidentally it is a shame an equivalent  device is not available to hack on...</text></comment>
<story><title>The iPhone X’s notch is basically a Kinect</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/9/17/16315510/iphone-x-notch-kinect-apple-primesense-microsoft</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>IBM</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s probably a handful of acquisitions in this release cycle:&lt;p&gt;WiFiSLAM in 2013&lt;p&gt;PrimeSense in 2013&lt;p&gt;LinX in 2015&lt;p&gt;Metaio in 2015&lt;p&gt;Faceshift in 2015&lt;p&gt;Emotient in 2016&lt;p&gt;Flyby Media in 2016&lt;p&gt;RealFace in 2017&lt;p&gt;and probably more that isn&amp;#x27;t obvious to me.&lt;p&gt;It was reported by Bloomberg, funnily enough in an article framed as Apple struggling in M&amp;amp;A [1], that Metaio took a lowball offer:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;Apple often refuses to work with investment bankers appointed by the seller, preferring to deal directly with company management, according to people who have been involved in such negotiations. Apple also dictates terms and tells targets to take it or leave it, betting that the promise of product development support later and the chance of appearing in future iPhones are alluring enough, the people said.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;That was the case when Apple acquired Metaio GmbH in 2015. Bankers appointed by the augmented-reality firm to negotiate weren’t allowed in the room, and while Metaio executives felt the offer was low, Apple’s vision for the technology convinced them to sell, according to a person familiar with the discussions.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;Apple’s current M&amp;amp;A strategy works well for acquiring startups developing new technology that can be added to existing Apple products. It bought 15 to 20 companies per year over the last four years. But buying larger companies presents a different challenge, particularly if there are rival bids. Bankers often diffuse tension between bidders and targets, but Apple’s approach can make that process difficult.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;“There’s a swagger -- you may call it arrogance -- about the culture there,” said Risley of  Architect Partners. “They’re used to being able to muscle their way in and get attractive economics.”&lt;p&gt;Which seems completely logical on Metaio&amp;#x27;s part. It&amp;#x27;s obvious a lot of these startups working on fundamental technologies are just going to toil in obscurity, and selling to Apple is a chance to have your technology deployed and used in the biggest way possible.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;2017-02-15&amp;#x2F;apple-struggles-to-make-big-deals-hampering-strategy-shifts&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;2017-02-15&amp;#x2F;apple-str...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>