Lithuanian company Etronika has demonstrated a beta version of an application that uses Microsoft's Kinect motion sensor technology as an interface to on-screen consumer banking applications.
The demo took place at the CTIA wireless show in San Diego. The application allows users to navigate among screen icons using simple hand gestures.
The demonstration included an innovative take on online bill payments using a mobile phone, in which a user holds up his handset to recreate a virtual image of the device on the screen. The user then moves his hand to the bill icon to send a copy to his mobile phone.
Etronika has posted a video of the technology in action on YouTube.
Microsoft in June released a Windows softare development kit for Kinect as a beta for non-commercial applications. The SDK release is intended to encourage developers to create new applications that play to Kinect's depth sensing, human motion tracking, and voice and object recognition capabilities. The vendor says it intends to release a commercial version of the SDK at a "later date".
Microsoft booth jockeys at the BAI Retail Delivery conference in Chicago were impressed by the news, but unaware of any commercial banking apps in the works. Here, Kinect is being used as a prize draw crowd puller for the Xbox 360 gaming console.