AllThingsD » gesture recognition

Gesture Tech Company Hillcrest Labs Moves Into Smartphone Territory

Ina Fried — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 04:00:56 +0000

Hillcrest Labs is the latest company promising to bring Kinect-style gesture recognition to the smartphone.

Hillcrest, which has been working in the gesture and motion technology field for a decade, says the addition of gyroscopes, accelerometers and other sensors to the phone make it a perfect candidate for gesture recognition.

The Rockville, Md.-based company’s FreeSpace motion engine is already used in smart TVs and Roku set-top boxes. Hillcrest said it has adapted its software to also work with devices running Android and Windows 8.

Phones and tablets using its technology should show up starting in the first quarter of next year, Senior VP Chad Lucien told AllThingsD.

“We have a customer today,” Lucien said. “We are not in a position to announce who it is.”

Qualcomm demonstrated its gesture-recognition technology to AllThingsD last month, and Korea’s Pantech has announced gesture-capable phones using technology from Israel’s eyeSight Mobile Technologies.

Gesture recognition has wide potential, Lucien said. In addition to being used in such obvious areas as gaming and augmented reality, sensors can detect when a phone is in a car, and can change the interface and aid indoor navigation by detecting where a phone has headed once it leaves GPS range.

Lucien said Hillcrest’s approach sits in between the sensors and the operating system, allowing it to easily work with a variety of sensors, while at the same time ensuring that programs gain some gesture support without having to customize their software.

Device makers that want to further differentiate their user interface could take things further, Lucien said, and build on top of additional software hooks that Hillcrest has developed.

Israel's eyeSight Raises $4.2 Million in Funding for Gesture Recognition Technology

Ina Fried — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:00:02 +0000

Israel’s eyeSight Mobile Technologies, whose gesture recognition technology is being used in smartphones, announced Tuesday it has raised $4.2 million in Series B funding from investors including chipmaker CEVA and Japan’s Mitsui & Co. Global Investment.

Korea's Pantech to Use Kinect-Like Gesture Recognition in Android Phones

Ina Fried — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:58:08 +0000

Korean phone maker Pantech, best known in the U.S. for low-end Android and messaging phones, hopes to make a name for itself by adding gesture recognition a la Microsoft’s Kinect.

The technology, which comes from Israel’s eyeSight Mobile Technologies, will be part of a new Vega LTE line of phones due to hit the market in November. Gestures are useful, eyeSight says, at times when touch input is impractical, such as when driving or wearing gloves.

Among the functions able to be done via gesture will be answering calls and playing music.

A YouTube video shows the technology in action, with a woman — hands covered in batter — using a wave of the hand to answer the phone.

Microsoft developed its Kinect technology using a mixture of in-house development as well as technology from at least two other Israeli startups — PrimeSense and 3DV Systems.

D7 Video Highlights: Canesta Demo

Beth Callaghan — Thu, 28 May 2009 17:05:28 +0000

Canesta, a San Jose-based company specializing in 3-D “natural interfaces,” demo a new technology at D7 today that allows a person to use gestures to control TV functions–-everything from changing channels to navigating more complex menus. Apparently, it also enables you to Twitter from offstage while doing something completely different onstage.

[ See post to watch video ]

D7 Tech Demo: Canesta

Oliver J. Chiang — Thu, 28 May 2009 16:55:23 +0000

Say goodbye and good riddance to your clunky and obsolete remote control. At least, that’s what Canesta, a San Jose-based company specializing in 3-D “natural interfaces,” would like to see happen. Today the company will demonstrate a new technology that allows a person to use gestures to control TV functions–everything from changing channels to navigating more complex menus.

Demo Highlights

[ See post to watch video ]

Live Blog

Intro: Walt and Kara welcome Canesta, Hitachi (HIT) and GestureTek. That’s a lot of companies.
Jim Spare, CEO of Canesta: A la “Minority Report,” you can use gestures to control your TV and other devices (in the future; today it’s just TV). We’ve developed a new kind of 3-D camera that’s built in to the TV.
Walt: Software? Jim: GestureTek has been on top of that.
Demo guy Jason waves his hand, and like magic, the menu responds. Kara: How does it focus on one person? Jim: The camera/sensor technology can track a person. Walt: So it’s a new way to fight over the remote.
They now turn the volume up and down. Then Jason brings up the menu. The gesture for that looks like a hand making a swimming motion.
Kara: What other gestures? Jim talks about several fundamental ones. Waving “hi” changes services on the menu. A forward push, “pushes” the button on screen. Some other easy gesture for the volume control.
Walt: When does it get to the U.S.? GestureTek: Maaaybe 2010; we can’t say yet.
Walt and Kara: Well thank you for stopping by.
Stay tuned for upcoming D7 acts like the Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington and the Washington Post’s Katharine Weymouth–after the break!

D7 Tech Demo: Immersion

Oliver J. Chiang — Wed, 27 May 2009 23:15:19 +0000

Immersion (IMMR) is the company behind haptic, or touch feedback, technology for some videogame consoles and cellphones. At D7, the company will reveal two of its newest technologies: TouchSense for touchscreen keyboards and Immersive Messaging. With TouchSense, the user is not only supposed to be able to get haptic feedback, but can also feel the virtual keys. Immersive Messaging will also use haptic feedback, as well as gesture recognition, to send messages that employ physical senses rather than text.

Session Highlights

[ See post to watch video ]

Live Blog

Walt and Kara welcome Immersion CTO Christophe Ramstein to the stage. Rock music plays.
Christophe: I am here to unveil two new things: Immersive Message and TouchSense Keyboards. Walt: So it makes an iPhone virtual keyboard feel like a mechanical keyboard. Christophe: Bingo.
Everything here is new, shiny, and of course, available for productization.
Cue infomercial: Ever feel like virtual typing is difficult? Now there’s TouchSense! Christophe types on the virtual keyboard and we hear the keyboard sounds. Pretty realistic. Kara tries it too. Christophe: What do you feel? Kara: Funny. I feel like it’s going to shock me.
Walt: This is very cool, but what’s the advantage? Can I not look at my keyboard now. Christophe: It’s about transitioning between keys, and yes, without looking. Sounds alone don’t do the trick. We can do other things with our haptic feedback and kinesthetics too.

Walt: Do Olli-Pekka and the Palm (PALM) guys know about this? Christophe: [says some stuff]. Walt: But you didn’t answer my question. Christophe: I understand that. [conference takes a beat, then moves on.] This was paraphrased, of course.
Immersive Messaging: You can get physical sense-feedback through messaging. We also have “hapticons.” Hapti-huh? Kara: It sounds like what Kirk fought in the last Star Trek. Walt: Those were the Romulans.–Only at D7. I think it sounds like the Decepticon’s kid brother.
Christophe demonstrates a hapticon heart on his phone. He now tells us to use our imaginations….Pretend you (Walt and Kara) are on a trip, and you are lovers. You can create a heart and it can even beat.
Christophe blows onto his screen, and was able to send the heart over. He says, you can send these heart hapticons over the Internet. Kara: So it’s not like some creepy guy on the plane will send you one. Christophe: Touch the heart I sent you. What do you feel? Kara: It’s beating.
Now Christophe’s using a hammering gesture, tapping on his phone. Walt feels these taps on the receiving end. Kara: He keeps nailing us. Walt: Not what I expected.
The CTO starts to wax and wane: There are infinite possibilities. Walt: Actually there aren’t infinite possibilities in this limited-time demo.
Now onto twiddling. It sounds a bit racy. Kara is intrigued (euphemism). Twiddling is that special time after I get off work, beer in hand, Christophe begins. Immersion may want to rethink that selling point.

Twiddling turns out to be a way that two people can simultaneously touch their own phone’s touchscreens and virtually feel each other, again through haptic feedback.
Christophe shows off the ability to say “cheers” to a friend with a champagne sound/feel of bubbles and clinking.
Walt: Will this be an iPhone app? Christophe: I could tell you, but then I’d have to keeeeel you. Walt and Kara: Fair enough. Off with you now! You’ve been a good sport.