New Technology Based Gadget May Hit Markets this Christmas
The $ 60 million acquisition of Pebbles, the Israel-based company, which has recently integrated its technology into the virtual-reality headset developed by Facebook’s Oculus VR, will help to keep Facebook’s cutting edge virtual reality technology out of the hands of competitors, say analysts.
This acquisition is seen as important a move as the takeover of VR goggle producer Oculus Rift by Facebook in 2014.Sources said that the new product that would result from the integration of Pebble’s virtual technology and the Oculus Rift is set to hit the shelves around Christmas of 2015.
The takeover of Pebbles Interface is the fourth such acquisition that Facebook has done since it acquired Oculus. The ultimate goal, according to the company, is to “expand the company’s virtual reality experience’.
The alternative reality experience that is provided by Oculus Rift’s VR device, that is worm around the head, though impressive, lacks some of the human elements of the human body. One of the prime factors behind the latest acquisition by acquisition by Facebook is to include the human body experience in virtual reality world.
Pebbles Interface, set up in 2010 with just 50 employees, had developed virtual a reality experience that is essentially from the present in the market. Pebbles’ technology, unlike the other competing gesture-identification technologies in use in the market, in which users can't "see" their bodies or only see digitally-generated pictures, Pebbles Interface’s technology allows the users to be able to see images of their own arms and hands in their virtual-reality display.
Unique features like clothing, scars or items users hold in their hands would also be “visible” with the technology, said the company.
This unique virtual reality experience is enabled by the use of custom optics, sensor systems and algorithms that enable the detection and tracking of almost all of the hand movements. The virtual reality of users is significantly enhanced when users are able to “view” their own hands and fingers in their field of virtual reality. The company has also said that it is working to develop more such applications for the virtual reality platforms.
Analysts say that this is where Facebook saw the business opportunity behind the acquisition and would help Facebook leverage the Oculus VR in competition in the market.
In a blog on their corporate website, Oculus says: “we’re excited to announce that we’ve entered into an agreement to acquire Pebbles Interfaces – one of the leading teams in depth-sensing technology and computer vision”.
The technological development team of Pebbles is slated to join the hardware engineering and computer vision teams of Oculus Rift and the Pebbles’ human imaging interface would be incorporated into the Oculus Rift headset.
Pebbles was founded by Nadav Grossinger in 2010 and is based in Kfar Saba. In the last five years the company has managed to raise a capital of around $20 million. However several of big global names in the electronics industry have investments in the company. They include Chinese electronics company Xiomi; Israeli venture capital fund Giza; Sandisk, the U.S. maker of flash memory drives; Germany’s Robert Bosch Venture Capital; and Hong Kong’s iNetworks 360.
(Source: www/digitalliik.com)
This acquisition is seen as important a move as the takeover of VR goggle producer Oculus Rift by Facebook in 2014.Sources said that the new product that would result from the integration of Pebble’s virtual technology and the Oculus Rift is set to hit the shelves around Christmas of 2015.
The takeover of Pebbles Interface is the fourth such acquisition that Facebook has done since it acquired Oculus. The ultimate goal, according to the company, is to “expand the company’s virtual reality experience’.
The alternative reality experience that is provided by Oculus Rift’s VR device, that is worm around the head, though impressive, lacks some of the human elements of the human body. One of the prime factors behind the latest acquisition by acquisition by Facebook is to include the human body experience in virtual reality world.
Pebbles Interface, set up in 2010 with just 50 employees, had developed virtual a reality experience that is essentially from the present in the market. Pebbles’ technology, unlike the other competing gesture-identification technologies in use in the market, in which users can't "see" their bodies or only see digitally-generated pictures, Pebbles Interface’s technology allows the users to be able to see images of their own arms and hands in their virtual-reality display.
Unique features like clothing, scars or items users hold in their hands would also be “visible” with the technology, said the company.
This unique virtual reality experience is enabled by the use of custom optics, sensor systems and algorithms that enable the detection and tracking of almost all of the hand movements. The virtual reality of users is significantly enhanced when users are able to “view” their own hands and fingers in their field of virtual reality. The company has also said that it is working to develop more such applications for the virtual reality platforms.
Analysts say that this is where Facebook saw the business opportunity behind the acquisition and would help Facebook leverage the Oculus VR in competition in the market.
In a blog on their corporate website, Oculus says: “we’re excited to announce that we’ve entered into an agreement to acquire Pebbles Interfaces – one of the leading teams in depth-sensing technology and computer vision”.
The technological development team of Pebbles is slated to join the hardware engineering and computer vision teams of Oculus Rift and the Pebbles’ human imaging interface would be incorporated into the Oculus Rift headset.
Pebbles was founded by Nadav Grossinger in 2010 and is based in Kfar Saba. In the last five years the company has managed to raise a capital of around $20 million. However several of big global names in the electronics industry have investments in the company. They include Chinese electronics company Xiomi; Israeli venture capital fund Giza; Sandisk, the U.S. maker of flash memory drives; Germany’s Robert Bosch Venture Capital; and Hong Kong’s iNetworks 360.
(Source: www/digitalliik.com)
