Ceva doubles down with investment in motion-gesture recognition firm

Chip and hardware designer Ceva made a minority equity investment in gesture recognition firm EyeSight Mobile Technologies, the companies announced today.

While more mobile technology companies are exploring gesture recognition options, the implementation of touch-free solutions further taxes the processors of mobile devices, leading to reduced battery life. Any alternative that can extend the battery life of mobile electronics while implementing new gesture recognition software is a welcome innovation in the field.

Ceva manages a flexible hardware platform – Ceva-MM3000 – that can be installed in a variety of multimedia devices, ranging smartphones to digital televisions. The solution essentially takes some of the heavy computing work off the shoulders of the main device, significantly improving power efficiency. EyeSight’s hand-gesture recognition software can be used with any device that features a camera, including portable game consoles, enabling these electronics to provide players with an experience similar to Microsoft’s Kinect.

Under the new investment agreement, EyeSight’s touch-free solutions will be available to users of the Ceva-MM3000 platform. Given the computation-intensive requirements of gesture recognition, the partnership with EyeSight seems only natural.

For example, Korean phone maker Pantech recently integrated EyeSight’s hands-free technology into its products to make tasks such as answering the phone while driving easier – a simple wave of the hand will do the trick. The integration of the Ceva-MM3000 platform could reduce the workload tackled by the phone’s main central processing unit (CPU) and further extend its battery life, despite the complex nature of gesture recognition.

“Semiconductor vendors require higher performance, lower power and more flexible processor solutions to successfully incorporate advanced gesture technology into their product designs,” Gideon Shmuel, CEO of eyeSight, explained in a statement from the company. “Our strategic partnership with Ceva brings together our industry-leading gesture recognition technologies with the industry’s most advanced ISP and video platform to offer the Ceva-MM3000 users a powerful, software-based solution that delivers dramatically improved performance.”

With Ceva’s investment in pocket, EyeSight has now accumulated more than $4 million in investments, completing its second round of funding.