Israeli gesture recognition technology company eyeSight Motion Technologies has developed the world’s first Android smart set-top box with integrated recognition technology for South Korean company, InnoDigital.
The box, called the nTobeBox, revolutionizes the living room by transforming any regular TV into a smartTV, which can be used to watch TV, stream content, surf the Internet, download apps, make video calls and more. And users can control virtually every function of their TV set with hand gestures alone.
The device has a built-in webcam that can connect to the TV that will allow users to do anything on screen that they could have done with the TV’s remote control, including adjust the volume, change channels, fix the picture.
“We’re really happy to be working in co-operation with Innodigital to produce something remarkable; the world’s first STB with integrated gesture control,” said Gideon Shmuel, CEO of the Caesarea-based company.
“The groundbreaking user experience we’ve brought to this Innodigital product will help it stand head-and-shoulders above its competition: eyeSight’s advanced machine vision algorithms allow for natural, intuitive gestures.”
I.K.Kim, CEO at Innodigital added: “We chose eyeSight’s software-based solution not only because of the fantastic user experience but also for the simplicity of integration and flexibility it allowed. Now users can do anything our product offers simply by moving their hand. This kind of interaction represents a sea-change in people’s relationship with smart TVs.”
Privately-funded eyeSight was founded in 2005 by Itay Katz, now the company’s CTO. In July this year the company raised $2 million from a new Korean-Israeli fund Mac, and from private investors. The investment followed an earlier round of fundraising in late 2011, when the company raised $4.2m. from Ceva, and Mitsui & Co. Globes Investment, the investment arm of Japan’s Mitsui & Co.
The nTobeBox product with eyeSight’s gesture recognition technology will be internationally available at the start of next year.
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