I personally feel that the ST way with a way to project "force" and "energy" within a local environment will be more like it. In 2050 or so.
That stuff you posted seems to be a GREAT idea for industry tho. I hope they get that going quickly as just about every industry could benefit from it.
More about Natal
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3...51219?type=flv
It is confirmed in the video that it wont be out in 2009. But dev kits are already being sent out so I suspect the remaining issues are more on the software side than hardware side and Q1 and Q2 2010 look very good for this in my view.