Intel's big CES press conference included the promise of an ambitious goal: to make computer sensors more like human senses.

The RealSense 3D camera embedded in laptops and tablets can scan depth when taking pictures, through infrared and color sensors. Once the camera determines that depth, you can do some pretty crazy things, like immediately crop out a particular object by selecting its depth, or - through a new partnership with 3D systems, create a shareable scan and 3D print what your camera sees.

There's a way to use the camera to detect a person and place a new background behind that person, but it's not perfect: the person wasn't perfectly cut out in the frame.

But there's more. There are also some gaming-related uses for the cam - it tracks finger-by-finger gesture control, allowing people to move their hands on a flat plane to manipulate on-screen objects. It looks something off the Xbox Kinect, but on a tiny laptop. The same idea could potentially apply to augmented reality games too.

Intel's RealSense technology is reportedly coming to gadgets from manufacturers such as Acer, Asus, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Lenovo, and NEC.

More importantly, it feels like the future. Check it out: