We had a chance to stop by the Gyration (a Thomson company) booth and CES and check out some of their new motion-sensing products. The big announcement at the show was the release of the new Windows Vista Media Center remote. This $149.95 remote includes both RF (for the Media Center PC) and IR (for CE devices like TVs and receivers) interfaces and uses Gyration’s latest generation of gyroscopic technology. 

We found the new remote’s motion-sensing to work quite well — better than previous versions we’d tried in the past — and the ability to “lock” the sensing on made using the device a bit more intuitive compared to previous versions where you had to hold the “trigger” down while pointing.  The new remote The Hunted hd should be available by March ’07. We’d still like to see more of the functionality moved from dedicated buttons to the motion-sensing/pointing function, but that is, of course, a function of interface. For the actual Media Center apps, which are controlled onscreen, the pointer worked quite well.

Gyration was also showing their motion-sensing presentation pointers, which will be neatly packaged in keychain format with a USB adapter that handles the RF reception on the PC or Mac and includes flash memory. These will be handy for presenters on the go — since you’ll be able to carry your data and device all-in-one.