Embedded Vision Insights: March 13, 2012 Edition

Dear Colleague,

In the previous newsletter, I told you about embedded vision-related developments coming out of the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, Spain. Since then, two additional notable conferences have come and gone, both including plenty of embedded vision news of their own. CeBIT took place from March 6-10 in Hannover, Germany, while the GDC (Game Developer Conference) ran in near-parallel (March 5-9) in San Francisco, California. As before, I was personally unable to attend either show, so I welcome feedback from those of you who saw any of the products I mention below first-hand (as well as on any products whose coverage I might have overlooked).

Take Tobii, for example. I've recently written about the company's eye-tracking technology on several occasions, and Embedded Vision Alliance Founder Jeff Bier got a personal demonstration at January's Consumer Electronics Show. What I didn't realize until recently is that the company doesn't just code embedded vision software algorithms; it's also a hardware developer. At CeBIT, the Tobii unveiled a next-generation eye tracking sensor module called the IS-2S which according to a company spokesperson, fits on a single board, is 75 percent smaller than its precursor, consumes 40% less power and will be "cheaper to implement" (although the company declined to provide specifics).

At the show, Tobii was demonstrating its technology on the cleverly named EyeAsteroids 3D, a pupil-controlled variant of one of my favorite childhood quarter-gobbling gaming diversions, complete with a glasses-free autostereoscopic 3D display. But Tobii wasn't the only company talking up eye-tracking implementations at the time; GazeHawk just got acquired by Facebook. The social networking giant was compelled to do the deal for the human talent it bought, but it apparently didn't have direct interest in the startup's existing products, which use a computer's webcam to log a user's eye movements. The applicability to online advertising (and broader web page design) is perhaps obvious; the startup's founders welcome emails at [email protected] from parties interested in picking up the current-product torch.

Turning your attention to gestures, SoftKinetic is a company that Jeff Bier also spoke with at CES. Like Tobii, its business model encompasses both hardware and software. And like Tobii, it uses popular game titles to showcase its products' capabilities. SoftKinectic recently demonstrated on YouTube its DepthSense DS311 camera and accompanying drivers gesture-controlling a "stock" copy of Angry Birds running on a PC. And at the GDC, the company impressed Engadget with the accuracy and usability range of its infrared time-of-flight-based approach.

When it comes to consoles, Microsoft's Kinect has gotten the lion's share of press attention, but it's not the only game (pun intended) in town. Consider Sony's PlayStation Move, for example. While unlike "you are the controller" Kinect, Move requires that the user hold a hardware controller with an illuminated-orb end, Sony's setup is still vision-based by virtue of the console-located PlayStation Eye camera that tracks the orb's size and movement, thereby discerning distance, direction and speed over time. At the GDC, Sony reported that to date it had shipped more than 10.5 million Move controllers worldwide.

Considering the "shipped" qualifier (versus "sold"), that most PlayStation 3 consoles probably use at least two controllers, and that Move launched several months before Kinect, you may conclude that Sony's accomplishment has to date undershot that of competitor Microsoft. Nonetheless, it's a notable achievement. And Sony's also an early adopter of another embedded vision technology, augmented reality. The company's latest-generation portable game console, the PlayStation Vita, extends and expands on the augmented reality capabilities first pioneered in competitor Nintendo's 3DS.

While it might be tempting to dismiss games and other consumer-tailored implementations as casual "toys", don't underestimate their power to fuel broad consumer awareness of gesture (and eye) controlled interfaces, augmented reality, face recognition and other embedded vision technologies, awareness from which developers of other embedded vision products can also benefit. Equally, their high volumes will also fuel accelerated development of new silicon (and other hardware) and software system building blocks, along with cost reductions of those building blocks, from which other embedded vision applications can also benefit.

Speaking of conferences, stay tuned for the Silicon Valley-based Design West show at the end of this month, from which will come notable news from several Embedded Vision Alliance members, along with other companies. More on that next time…for now (and returning once more to the topic of gaze-tracking user interfaces), please join me in welcoming the latest member of the Embedded Vision Alliance, CogniMem Technologies. As always, I thank you for your interest and involvement in the field of embedded vision, and for your support of the Embedded Vision Alliance.

Brian Dipert
Editor-In-Chief, Embedded Vision Alliance

If you're building AI or vision-enabled products, you've come to the right place.

Embedded Vision Insights: March 13, 2012 Edition

Pages

Topics

Contact

Address

Phone