Apple has made another addition to its team this week with a former Microsoft Product Marketing chief, Robin Burrowes, joining the ranks to become the head of App Store Marketing for iTunes Europe. Burrowes was previously part of Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE team, and he’s not the first gaming executive to head for Cupertino as Apple gets serious about battling consoles head on.

Following a report that claims Nintendo is set to open up its own app store for its upcoming Wii U console, there are now suggestions that the Japanese gaming giant is “actively courting” iOS developers in a bit to lure them over to Wii U game development. One developer reports that the company even offered “assistance” with porting their title from iOS to be played on the console’s new controller, which features a 6.2-inch touchscreen.

Thanks to its front-facing camera, the iPad 2 is capable of producing a glasses-free 3D effect using head-tracking technology. Jeremie Francone and Laurence Nigay from the Laboratory of Informatics of Grenoble at the EHCI Research Group have used this technology, along with some really basic applications, to show off what the iPad 2 is capable of when it comes to 3D.

We track the head of the user with the front facing camera in order to create a glasses-free monocular display. Such spatially-aware mobile display enables to improve the possibilities of interaction. It do not use the accelerometers and relies only on the front camera.

The video below demonstrates how the concept works, and I think it’s really impressive. I can’t wait to see how developers might use head tracking to create a 3D gaming experience.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBQQEcfkHoE

Late next month, Nintendo is set to release the 3DS, the successor to their popular Nintendo DS handheld console. Besides a few bumped specs, the main selling point of the 3DS is its glasses-free 3D display, which Nintendo hopes will give their latest handheld a leg up on the competition… most importantly by giving them a clear point of differentiation from the DS’s number one competitor, the iPod Touch.

How long will Nintendo have 3D superiority over the Touch, though? Perhaps not as long as Nintendo thinks. A new rumor coming out of Japan suggests that the next iPod Touch will have the same glasses-free 3D display found in the Nintendo 3DS, based upon Cupertino’s multiple patents for 3D related technologies.