Power Moves

Gesture recognition from InvenSense lets you control hand-held devices through simple motions.

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FLYING CHILLI LTD

By more precisely recognizing hand gestures, InvenSense Inc. (NYSE: INVN) expects its latest integrated motion sensors to redefine smartphones. Game players, for example, can use an InvenSense-enabled phone to mimic a swing at a tennis ball. What’s more, “your phone will know not only exactly where you are at a particular moment, but also what you’re pointing at,” says CEO Steve Nasiri. Say you notice a restaurant across the street. In the future, he explains, “you might simply point your phone at it to call up the menu.”

InvenSense was born in Nasiri’s kitchen in 2003 and is based on a proprietary technology known as Nasiri-Fabrication. This wafer-to-wafer bonding process creates robust, high-quality sensors that are smaller and cheaper than existing models. Gesture recognition, explains the entrepreneur (who has been involved in six new company launches over the past 34 years), enables phones to translate precise movements into commands. “Say your phone rings on a winter day,” he suggests. “How can you answer it without taking your gloves off?” Tracing your initials in the air, for example, might unlock your phone, says Nasiri. A simple shake could launch e-mail.

READ A Q&A WITH STEVE NASIRI

Small Measures

InvenSense, says Nasiri, accomplishes gesture recognition by combining an accelerometer (a sensor that detects orientation with respect to gravity) and a gyroscope (for highly responsive rotational movements) within a single component. The company plans to take the concept even further with a low-cost unit that integrates the whole suite of existing motion sensors (gyro, accelerometer, compass, pressure sensor and more — as well as the software to fuse them all) into one motion-tracking module. The idea, Nasiri explains, is “a single solution that any manufacturer can drop into a device,” as opposed to welding separate pieces from separate manufacturers that must then be made to work together. “This,” he adds, “is only the beginning.”