Kinect technology firm PrimeSense envisions gesture-controlled office of the future

Changes in office life over the last 20 years have been profound, with home working, hot-desking, mobile devices and video conferencing all having a major impact on how we spend our waking hours.

Another change that could start to seep into offices in the future is the use of natural user interface (NUI) systems, which would see workers waving their arms around wildly to open documents, edit spreadsheets and browse the web - like a corporate Minority Report.

Such ideas may sound far-fetched but Inon Beracha, chief executive of Israeli firm PrimeSense, which developed the technology used by Microsoft in its record-breaking Kinect device, is confident such developments are only a matter of time.

"Natural interaction is relevant for office users. It offers corporate users augmentation of their work space, and can be a bridge between the real world and the digital world," he explained to V3 when we met in Israel.

"Applications like background replacement (known in TV as the ‘weatherman application') can offer richer video conferencing functionality were you can virtually appear on your colleague's desktop as if you were at the same room."

Given Microsoft's willingness to work with PrimeSense in the past it doesn't seem beyond the realms of possibility that it would start to try and include the technology in Windows systems in the future, especially given the huge success of the Kinect.

Based in Tel Aviv, PrimeSense employs some 130 workers, most of which are engineers working to help improve and refine the gesture-based technology it provides, having been set-up in 2005 by five founders.

"They saw a growing gap between the improvements in consumers devices, which improve every two years, while users do not change this quickly, so for years devices had to come with lengthy manuals to teach users how to work them", explains Beracha.

"It was as if device manufacturers were blaming users for being unable to operate their device, and that's wrong, it should be easy and intuitive."