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Oculus Acquires Pebbles Interfaces To Enhance Hand Tracking
Oculus has announced that its family is growing with the acquisition of Pebbles Interfaces, an Israeli company specializing in hand movement tracking. That team will be working on tracking and human-computer interactions.
In the video below, you’ll see a bit of what Pebbles Interfaces has been working on. While Oculus Touch handles some of the tracking needs for hand detection, what Pebbles is working on goes a step beyond.
As you can see, this technology naturally senses skin and finger movement. There are no sensor dots or gloves on the user’s skin. You’ll also see proper collision detection between the hands rather than unnatural clipping or phasing.
Oculus and Pebbles Interfaces have declined to discuss terms of the deal, though the Wall Street Journal reports the deal to be worth approximately $60 million.
[Source: Oculus]
Our Take
While it will likely be quite some time before we see commercial application of the Oculus/Pebbles team-up, the potential is enormous. Accurately mimicking hand movement without gloves or other peripheral means greater accessibility and decreased “time to game.” I’m eager to see how these come together in practical application.
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