Flutter is a startup software company based in San Francisco which aimed to bring Kinect-like powers to desktop OSes. The company was formed in 2010 when CEO Navneet Dalal felt like he was developing carpal tunnel syndrome sitting on his couch, trying to relax and navigate Netflix. Flutter makes use of the webcam you probably already have built into your laptop, to control popular media apps via hand gestures. The software that interprets those gestures properly has been improved steadily over the last few years to provide “a delightful user experience” by using the firm’s own “machine vision algorithms”.
Today Dalal announced that Flutter has been bought out by Google. “Today, we are thrilled to announce that we will be continuing our research at Google. We share Google’s passion for 10x thinking, and we’re excited to add their rocket fuel to our journey,” wrote the Flutter CEO.
Google’s acquisition doesn’t mean that the Flutter app for Windows and Mac is going to disappear, at least in the near future. Dalal assured users that they “will be able to continue to use the app, and stay tuned for future updates”. While the terms of the deal haven’t been revealed by either party an estimate on VR Zone puts the price paid at around US$40 million.
Motion control does seem to be in the ascendency but at the same time some solutions which sounded great in early glimpses have failed to live up to their promise. I actually have motion control built into my Sony VAIO I bought this summer, which utilises the built-in webcam, but I have turned this feature off by default as it is unresponsive and buggy.
What Google will do with this bought-in tech is just speculation right now but Mountain View must have seen promise in the Flutter apps and have intentions to use it somewhere within its portfolio of devices and mobile OSes. It could even become a default feature in Android, rivalling Samsung’s Air Gestures and Air View controls.
