Video: Softkinetic’s gesture-based video games

March 24, 2009 | Anthony Ha | Comments | |

Softkinetic, a company that wants to help people play video games using their bodies as controllers, was on stage at our GamesBeat 2009 conference today to give us a preview of its technology, which it’s been working on for six years. We wrote about Softkinetic back in 2006, but the technology is now coming into its own, with VentureBeat writer Dean Takahashi identifying it as one of the big trends at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show.

Ooyala’s Alexa Lee interviewed Softkinetic chief executive Michael Tombroff, and you can see her video below. You don’t get to see the dance game that the Atherton, Calif. company is working on, but Tombroff answers some questions about the product, and he and Lee also show off their dance moves.

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About the Author, Anthony Ha

Anthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on enterprise technology, cloud computing, and tech policy. Before joining VentureBeat in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.

  • For GestureTek it is great to see the growing interest and recognition of video gesture control as the next natural step in user interface for gaming and display interactivity. GestureTek has been inventing, patenting, and pioneering gesture control technology for over 20 years and has had 3D depth sensing and stereo control software and patents in place for over 8 years. You may be interested to know that GestureTek has already commercially deployed a package that makes available all the 3D tracking and control features mentioned, plus far more. Our software has always worked with any available 3D depth camera. Although we have developed some interesting unique gesture control commands, our 3D depth sensing technology has always offered the ability for users to control the system using virtually any hand gesture, such as grabbing, swiping, waving or pointing. Besides the work we are doing with major telecom companies for their set top boxes and electronics manufacturers for their next generation of TV’s and other consumer devices, GestureTek has deployed many public interactive displays utlizing our 3D depth sensing system. More details are available at http://www.gesturetek.com/3ddepth/introduction.php