Gesture computing

Controlling what's happening on screen with your appendages in 2002's "Minority Report" looked like pure sci-fi. Yet late last year Microsoft released the Kinect, a $150 add-on gadget for the company's XBox 360 console that tracked hand and body movements to what was happening on screen.

The similarity in this case was that not only was Microsoft using these body movements inside the games, but with the Xbox's entire menu system as well, letting gamers change settings and maneuver around the interface with just their hands.

Microsoft introduced a software development kit to enable Kinect to work with its Windows operating system earlier this year.