Google Acquires Indians-made Startup Flutter

Flutter is a San-Fancisco-based startup company founded by team of Indians - Navneet Dalal, Mehul Nariyawala, Ankit Mohan and Varun Gulshan. The company today has announced its acquisition by Google. Flutter is actually tech-startup that work on gesture recognition based technology which enables users to control music and movies with gestures through their webcam.

After the release of first app Flutter was doing further research in HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) and technology that makes gesture based interaction with computers ubiquitous. Google who apparently doesn't seems to work on same technology has acquired Flutter probably for this same reason.

Although Flutter is not the only such startup who is working gesture based technology, for example Cube26 formerly PredictGaze and Santa Clara based startup is also working on similar technology and coincidentally its too founded by few good Indians.

Announcing the Google acquisition Navneet CEO of Flutter said - "When we started three years ago, our dream to build a ubiquitous and power-efficient gesture recognition technology was considered by many as just "a dream", not a real possibility. Since then, we have strived to build the best machine vision algorithms and a delightful user experience."

Flutter allows users to control music & videos using simple gestures and supports major browsers and works with online music & video services like YouTube, Pandora, Grooveshark, Netflix and PC/desktop apps such as iTunes, Spotify, VLC, QuickTime and Windows Media Player to name a few.

To use Flutter one need to download installation set-ups for either Flutter for Windows or Flutter for Mac and start using the same.

A Google spokesperson too confirmed the deal to the media, "We're really impressed by the Flutter team's ability to design new technology based on cutting-edge research. We look forward to supporting and collaborating on their research efforts at Google."[Via - TOI]

Cube26 Allows Computers, TVs & Mobiles to Detect Facial Expressions & Emotions

Cube26, formerly PredictGaze founded by few good Indians at Santa Clara, US has developed the next generation of technology that allows devices to recognize users, interpret human gestures and understand their emotions. The Santa Clara startup bring interactivity to various devices such as TV, Computers, Mobiles and gaming consoles to detect various gestures and emotions of  user without even touching these devices.

The technology enables devices to understand natural human commands and gestures such as - Emotion Detection, Presence Detection, Natural Gesture Recognition, Gaze Tracking, Face/Body Recognition, Age/Gender Identification etc. Face and body recognition technology uses digital camera sensors to extract features and map identifying points on a person's face and body, track a user's face and body to stop unauthorized access to our laptops or mobiles. This technology can work in different lighting conditions and orientation.

Natural gesture recognition interprets human gestures via mathematical algorithms such as - speaking shh! to mute your TV or extending your arm slightly and forming your hand in a 'stop' gesture to pause or play a movie on your laptop or TV. Recently in April this year Cube26 has launched the gesture-controlled video player on iOS platform called - 'LookAway Player' that allows users to mute the volume with a simple shush gesture and can intelligently play or pause the video content based on user's attention. LookAway player uses the front-facing VGA camera in the device to enable Cube26’s natural vision controls.

With emotion detection, Cube26 is also able to capture that moment of emotion and determine how a consumer reacted to the product, engagement or advertisement and with Age/Gender identification it helps in parental controlling by recognizing and blocking adult programs when a child under the age of 12 enters the room.



Cube26 is also making advancement in Indian market by partnering with six of India’s leading smartphone brands - Micromax, Intex, Celkon, Zen, iBerry and Lemon Mobile and via this collaboration Cube26 will allow these smartphone manufacturers to let their touchscreen interface use touchless controls using Human Computer Interaction (HCI). All these smartphones manufactures smartphones together accounts for more than 25% of the India’s smartphone market.

Cube26 will provide these Indian smartphones manufacturers with features such as Look away to Pause (video player that automatically pauses when the user isn’t watching), Auto-call (automatically triggering a phone call when a user brings the phone to his or her ear) and Touchless Swipe to answer (allowing users to answer their phone without having to touch it).

Cube26, founded by Aakash Jain in Santa Clara, California, US when he was doing his Master's then came along two other US-based Indians - Saurav Kumar and Abhilekh Agarwal from same university he was doing his masters.