According to The Daily, the prototype netbooks featured an array of small sensors stretching across the top of the screen where a webcam typically resides
this is too much to say for such a simple thing.
Really that kinect thing is nothing complex, nothing new and not expensive at all.
You just take more than 2 cameras, make the drivers and there you have a kinect like system.
This sensors and arrays are nothing more than really cheap low resolution cameras, driven by a program to recognize your face and your hands, just like other webcam programs do (recognize your face you they can focus on it) for many years now.
It's sad to see companies sell old staff, or old technology as a new product and making money out of it.
Will this thing be in handy? I believe not, because your mouse is the most accurate thing you can use and I believe that nobody is going to use it in public places. Just imagine someone waving and pointing at his/her laptop, it will be a hilarious scene.