Gesture recognition deals and a micro-gesture future

We reported on Extreme Reality (XTR) about a year ago, as one of several gesture recognition start-ups that looked soon to be hot. Now it's been reported that XTR closed deals with both Samsung and NEC, for their technology to be used on those companies' computers.

As we said previously, Israel-based XTR's technology does work on mobile, but the company's focus is on webcam-equipped computers. Their technology delivers full-body gesture recognition, implemented fully in software, using standard camera technology. Both Samsung and NEC are reportedly using the technology for computers, not mobile phones.

So what will be next in gesture recognition? Other gesture recognition companies are likely to be in play soon, including software solution companies like EyeSight, 3D-camera-based middleware solution companies like Omek Interactive and LM3Labs, and CMOS companies like SoftKinetic.

Even more exciting to us, however, is the growing area of "micro-gestures" for mobile devices. Umoove’s technology focuses on the user’s face from a smartphone or tablet front-facing camera, and recognizes where the user’s eyes are looking and which way their head is tilted. PointGrab recognizes hands, both where they move and there they make a grabbing motion. Grizzly Analytics thinks that micro-gesture recognition, particularly for recognizing facial gestures and expressions, will be a growing area in 2013.

The trend appears clear - gesture recognition is a field which is on the move.

Sensor-fusion indoor location system in over 30 malls in Singapore

SingTel just deployed indoor mapping and navigation from Swedish start-up SenionLab in over 30 shopping malls in Singapore, with 20 more in planning, in the biggest single deployment we've seen yet of customized indoor location technology. The most significant aspect of this deployment is that this is one of the first commercial deployments of indoor location technology that uses a new technology approach called "sensor fusion," which uses sensors in smartphones (gyroscope, compass, accelerometer, ...) to track location by sensing the phone's movements. Most indoor location systems determine location by measuring the signals of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots or cellular antennas, but this risks looking choppy as the phone waits for the radio signals to change to detect the next place it is. Sensing motion using phone sensors makes the system work more smoothly, regardless of radio signal details. (The SenionLab solution does use Wi-Fi signals as well, to compe...

Nokia indoor location positioning research shown at MWC 2012

Grizzly Analytics has been looking closely at indoor location technology, both technology research at major companies and technology solutions available to store-owners and other site managers . At MWC we expected that indoor location would be prominent, and we weren't disappointed! We had the pleasure of seeing a large number of demonstrations of indoor positioning in action. This is the first of several blog posts looking at these demonstrations, starting with Nokia. First I'll give some explanation, then below is a video showing Nokia's demo in action and hearing comments from their researchers. Nokia has been researching indoor location technology for years, and the technology has advanced each year but not yet reached market. Their demo is, in a word, breathtaking, in the speed and precision at which it tracks people walking around the room. People are seen on a computer screen or phone screen, in real-time, moving as they walk around the demo room flo...

Adding real value to smartphone camera pictures

Most technology features follow a similar path, from imitation to improvement to transformation. First they imitate something that came before, like telephones imitating the telegraphs of yesteryear. Then they improve on them, like phones entering individual homes. Then they transform the entire endeavor, completely surpassing the previous technology, like phones automatically connecting people without operator involvement, which enabled society to communicate in ways that telegraph users never contemplated. Cellphone cameras are following a similar path. At the beginning cellphone cameras were imitating digital cameras, adding the convenience of carrying only one device but basically doing the same as digital cameras did. Then they improved on them, both with quality improvements and with the ability to share pictures wirelessly without wiring the phone to a computer. The ability to instantly share and synchronize pictures from a phone is somewhat transf...

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