ARM Community: SmartTVs Reset: Solving the New Interaction Paradigm - ARM Community

Today, everybody agrees that SmartTVs will revolutionize the way we watch and interact with TV. However, some important challenges remain: like what are the best devices to interact with this new breed of TV, and how broad are the possibilities for apps and games? Are TVs becoming the windows to our digital world of connected devices?

We at SoftKinetic strongly believe that natural interaction with your television will profoundly change the way we interact with this smart device. Similarly to the mass adoption of touchscreens a few years ago for personal devices, gesture recognition is now becoming another critical building block. The performance of ARM Powered^® boards, combining ARM Cortex™ processors and ARM Mali™ GPUs is amazing. It’s now possible to run full body tracking and analysis together with high-end apps and games.

As a member of the ARM Connected Community®, SoftKinetic, presented a “sneak-peek” of the potential offered by 3D imaging and gesture recognition technology recently at the 2012 Game Developers Conference At the ARM booth, SoftKinetic demonstrated our DepthSense™ camera along with iisu™, our full body tracking middleware, running on the ARM Cortex-A9 processor. The embedded system was running our full body puppets control game with beautiful graphics also leveraging the full capabilities of the Mali GPU.

Since 2002, SoftKinetic has been working tirelessly to achieve our vision “to give everyone the freedom to control, explore, and enjoy the entire digital world through the most natural and intuitive user interfaces and machine interactions”. Throughout the years, we have been interacting with TV manufacturers, telecom operators, content developers and platform providers who want to be part of the revolution. SoftKinetic is the only company offering the fully integrated solution, on ARM Cortex processors and ARM Mali GPUs, from our time-of-flight sensor technology to the end-user game and app. Our package includes iisu, the most advanced tracking solution for multi user full body tracking, scene analysis and individual fingers tracking for Close Interaction (CI).



In addition to providing more natural navigation experiences for end-users, gesture recognition on your Smart TV will open up huge opportunities for content providers, whether in the interactive gaming space, serious gaming (rehabilitation, sport training), video conferencing, virtual shopping, interactive movies or any application area that makes the content as smart as the TVs.

Look out for the first products hitting the market from 2013!

Guest Partner Blogger:
Virgile Delporte, VP Marketing & Communications, SoftKinetic, Virgile joined SoftKinetic from Dassault Systemes, where he held a senior management position at 3DVIA, the sixth and newest brand of Dassault Systemes, specializing in 3D development and web tools, following the acquisition of Virtools in 2005. He previously started, managed and grew the first subsidiary of Virtools between 2003 and 2006 in Montréal, Canada. Virgile graduated from the South Bank University of London (Business Administration) and from the University of Paris X (Masters in International Trade) and brings over 13 years experience in the Entertainment and Middleware industry.

ARM welcomes its wealth of Partners in the ARM Connected Community (CC) to submit guest blogs to be published on our multiple community blogs. If interested in participating please submit email inquiries to Tell.Us@arm.com.

The ARM Connected Community (CC) is an extensive ecosystem covering all aspects of ARM processor-based design, from chip implementation through to system and device design. The CC provides a platform for collaborative innovation, with multiple types of forums for members to work with one another, and with customers, to solve industry challenges, all with the purpose of enabling designers to focus on differentiating features and an accelerated time-to-market for ARM powered solutions.