Philippe Kahn’s Fullpower demos motion-sensing ear-piece
Philippe Kahn showed off a motion-sensing ear piece at the AllThingsD conference today. For the past five years, Kahn’s startup Fullpower Technologies has been developing a system that can track your motion. They’ve now built the accelerometer-based technology into a ear piece that serves as a cell phone headset.
Much like the Nintendo Wii’s motion-sensing controller, the ear piece can detect where you move. You tap it to get started and then start jogging. Then the sensors detect your motion and then it measures your jog. Once you are done running, you tap it twice and it tells you how far you ran.
If you take the device out of your ear, it senses the action and then puts itself to sleep.
It’s one of many companies trying to create next-generation user interfaces through motion-sensing technology. Others include Microsoft’s 3DV Systems, Prime Sense, Canesta, Softkinetic, Invensense, Sixense and a variety of others.
Kahn was the famous founder of Borland, which lost the productivity software wars with Microsoft. He was booted in 1995 and founded Starfish Software, which he sold to Motorola. After that, he started LightSurf Technologies, a picture-messaging company acquired by Verisign in 2005.
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About the Author, Dean Takahashi
Dean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.