May 17, 2016

9:10 am 0 Shares Today, Israel-based eyeSight Technologies is announcing the launch of a new gesture-based software solution that replaces the need for physical controllers when using a virtual reality headset. This follows their May 4th announcement about the successful close of their $20 million Series C round led by Chinese conglomerate Kuang-Chi. This year is no doubt the start of the VR revolution, and some of the largest brands are competing for marketing share with their hardware. Before Oculus, Vive, or even the upcoming Playstation VR, Google made waves with their Cardboard solution. Cardboard is nothing more than a holder for your smartphone, and is an incredibly low barrier to entry into the world of 3D and VR. A year later, Samsung launched the Gear VR headset, and dozens upon dozens followed suit with their own offerings. Prior to eyeSight’s solution, most VR apps worked like a dumbed-down eye tracker, where you simply faced a direction or a button, held your position for a timed duration, and then moved forward. With eyeSight, now you can control VR apps using hand gestures that are picked up from the camera on the back of iPhones and Android devices. eyeSight in Action “The virtual reality industry is growing at an extremely rapid pace, with estimations that there will be 171 million active virtual reality users by 2018,” said eyeSight CEO Gideon Shmuel. “We are leading the charge in bringing the touch-free virtual reality experience to the average consumer, which is an even more exciting element to traditional VR. This new gesture control enablement makes a compelling offering for mobile device manufacturers.” Share this: