Engineers at PureDepth Inc. spent years developing tools for helping the military plot 3-D maps of war zones, eventually licensing top-secret technology to the U.S. Air Force and Navy.But the Silicon Valley startup hit the jackpot in October when it inked a deal with International Game Technology Inc., the world’s largest maker of slot machines.
Industry experts say a realistic digital video display is the final hurdle that will completely digitize one-armed bandits. The new displays by PureDepth and others — set to debut later this year — could profoundly change the $85 billion U.S. gambling industry and how it’s regulated.
When high-tech slots are in place, programmers will be able to control nearly every aspect of the game — cost, payout, even the images that line up on the payline. Casino operators will be able to make changes in real time through back-end servers that talk to computer chips inside the slot machines.
“This is the last piece of the puzzle,” financial analyst Aimee Marcel Remey, who follows the gaming industry for Jefferies & Co. “These new systems are so different from the slots out there now. You feel like it’s an exact science, every time you pull.”
Maybe I just woke up feeling aggro and misanthropic because I can’t seem to find a Wii but, Military technology finds pay load( pun intended…sorry) in Gambling…I’m not sure wether to laugh some more or go throttle the first 10 people I see…Used to e the other way around, with the military co-opting consumer technologies.
By RACHEL KONRAD, AP Technology Writer Sun Mar 18, 10:07 PM ET
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