At this year’s Game Developers Conference we unveiled Move.me, a new software application that runs on the PS3 system and gives researchers, students, and programmers access to PlayStation Move’s technology for developing apps beyond traditional gaming — physical therapy, sports rehabilitation, or education. Move.me enables anyone with a PS3 to experiment with PlayStation Move and create new applications using a PC, the PlayStation Move motion controller, the PlayStation Eye camera, and the PS3 system.

Later today, Move.me will be available as a complimentary download for members of Academia including Academic researchers, faculty, staff, and students. Interested participants can apply for the Academia Program here. For all other users, Move.me will be available later today on the PlayStation Store for $99.99.

We’re already seeing a tremendous response to Move.me in the academic community. Some of those developers with early access to the application recently gave us an inside scoop on their work. Check out the video above for more details.

We encourage any of you interested in developing applications to check out the Move.me webpage and the new forum on the Move.me community page. This forum will serve as the Move.me hub, giving researchers, students, and other programmers a place to share ideas and discussions, as well as to post video demos for showcasing the applications they create.

Do you have a great idea you’d like to share? What are some of the Move.me applications you’d like to see? We’re very excited to make this application accessible to you all and we’re looking forward to seeing the great applications you make with Move.me.

Hi Gamers, John McCutchan, Senior Engineer with SCEA’s Developer Support team, here to tell you about an exciting initiative we’re unveiling for PlayStation Move during GDC this week. Later today, I’ll be giving a presentation on Move.Me, a new software application that provides academics and hobbyists access to PlayStation Move’s technology, enabling them to create entirely new applications using a PC, the Move motion controller, the PlayStation Eye, and the power of the PlayStation 3 system. We know many of you might not be able to make the trek to San Francisco for the show, so we wanted to give you a quick overview of Move.Me here.

When we launched PlayStation Move last September, we knew it would set a new benchmark for precision in motion controlled gaming. Even before PlayStation Move was publicly available to all of you, we were talking about the device’s potential implications for academics and researchers. While visiting conferences like Games for Health and SIGGRAPH last year, these same researchers and academics expressed strong interest in utilizing PlayStation Move’s cutting edge technology for their own purposes. Move.Me is the result of these conversations, and is an opportunity for PlayStation to inspire new, revolutionary applications in other fields beyond gaming.

So, what exactly is Move.Me? In short, Move.Me is a server application that runs on the PS3 system. It allows anyone with a PS3 to experiment with motion controls and is officially sanctioned and supported by Sony Computer Entertainment. Move.Me sends the complete state of the PlayStation Move and navigation controllers to the PC, giving you the exact same data that licensed developers typically have access to.

What does this mean to you? We see Move.Me as an opportunity to satisfy the need for new, innovative interactive technology in fields like academia, healthcare, and more, as well as to support new developers and inspire applications that we could never have imagined. We hope it will be used to discover new ways of connecting individuals with information, and maybe even discovering a new healthcare application or two. We know that some of you out there are aspiring software developers yourselves and we’re eager to see what kinds of applications Move.Move inspires. Maybe an aspiring developer like you will create the next big thing with PlayStation Move!