GamesIndustry.biz has an interview up with Chris Spearing, Logitech’s country manager for the U.K. and Ireland. Though this part of the interview won’t be up til next week, the GamesIndustry.biz folks have teased us with the following:

 Chris Spearing explained that Logitech hopes “to have at least one product out for the Wii this year,” and went on to discuss the debate between rumble versus motion-sensing,

You can find the first part of the interview here. We’ll be tracking this and will see what we can dig up on our own.

Founded in 1997 to develop and market image tracking and computer control devices, NaturalPoint Inc. of Corvallis, Oregon, sells a motion application tracking device for the PC gaming community.

The TRACKIR 4 Pro offers real-time 3D view control. NaturalPoint claims its game device is the only six degrees of freedom (pitch, roll, yaw, X, Y and Z) head tracking system on the computer game market today.

Offering a 46-degree field of view and a 120 frames-per-second sampling rate, the Pro 4 is the system’s centerpiece, a hand-sized optical tracker that mounts on the top of a computer’s screen. The device captures infrared beams or tracks reflective dots mounted on headsets or even ball caps so that game-view changes according to a player’s body or head movements.

The advantage over a mouse or a joystick? TrackIR’s software allows players to customize their movements for each of the six degrees of freedom. For example, side-to-side movement might be programmed to go much slower than up-and-down motion.

In put devices vary from an a three-fingered LED device that clips onto over-the-ear headsets—the TrackClip Pro—to a flexible frame equipped with three reflective patches that is designed to fit over a ball cap hat brim (called the Vector Pro). Yet another option is sheets of self-adhesive reflective dots that can be attached to hats or headset microphones.

Videos and demos may be viewed by using the following link: http://www.naturalpoint.com/trackir/02-products/product-videos.html

We’ll be talking with the folks at Natural Point for some more details soon … keep an eye on this space.

A cool motion device called Copy Cat promises to help the deaf be heard and people who do not know American Sign Language (ASL) to be able to interpret the motions made by a person signing.

ASL is the standard for communication among deaf and mute persons in the United States. Over many years, ASL has been refined into a fairly standard set of motions made by the speaker.

Copy Cat, and its related game called Castle Quest, can read and interpret those signs, explains Thad Starner, director of the Contextual Computing Group at Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Computing and School of Interactive Computing.

Unlike hearing children of English-speaking parents or deaf children of signing parents, deaf children often lack access to language at home which is necessary in developing linguistic skills during the critical period of language development. In many cases, these children’s only exposure to language is from signing at school. Castle Quest and CopyCat are games with a serious intent. They use a sign language recognition system to augment early classroom teaching for developing ASL skills in young deaf children. Castle Quest is the iterated version of CopyCat, Starner explains.

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Multichannel News has a piece up today about the recent Leichtman Research Group findings that one in five U.S. households now has a DVR. The study goes on to predict that by 2011, 60% of homes will have a DVR.

While market  pioneer TiVo is known for its user-friendly interface, most of these DVRs are not TiVo products, and are coming bundled into Cable, Satellite or IPTV set tops. We’ve spent time using DVRs from all of the major players in these spaces, and uniformly the grid-based interface is almost painful to use in a 500+ channel environment.  We’re firm believers that a motion-sensing remote and related interface would really boost the take rate of the DVR services — and maybe will help boost the usage by those who have them (the study finds that despite this market penetration, 95% of TV viewing is still live).

We discussed the early news of this new controller back in July. The latest news indicates that In2Games, flush with about $15 million in venture funds, is on track and will be releasing the controller (and related games) in time for the holidays!

We’re working on an interview with In2Games, so expect to see more in this space soon.

In a big win for Hillcrest Labs , Logitech is debuting the company’s patented Freespace™ motion-control technology. We had a chance to sit down with Hillcrest’s Andy Addis and talk about the announcement and what it means for Hillcrest and motion-enabled market in general.

The deal, which potentially could involve the sale of millions of Freespace units over the next few years, promises to help move digital content users away from a grid to a pointing style unit for data access.

Logitech (www.logitech.com) is using Hillcrest’s technology in its new Logitech® MX Air™ Rechargeable Cordless Air Mouse. Freespace technology was initially designed by Hillcrest Labs for use in advanced television remote controls such as their Loop™ controller. It enables consumer-electronics manufacturers to embed advanced motion control capabilities into a wide range of devices and form factors. Logitech is one of the world’s leading manufacturer of computer mice, as well as a range of other peripherals for PCs, consumer electronics and home theater.

“We believe there is a huge, emerging consumer problem related to the explosion of the digital market,” says Andy Addis, executive vice president of marketing for Hillcrest. He says consumers have billions of videos, digital photos, MP-3s and the like — but no practical way to access and navigate that mountain of digital material. Meantime, the mountain continues to grow.

Addis says the current grid-based paradigm for accessing digital media has to change to unlock the value of the underlying product. The Hillcrest-Logitech deal unlocks the value of the technology, too.

“We are really excited about this program,” Addis continues. Part of that stems from the fact that Logitech is Hillcrest’s first major customer. Real product is now shipping into the marketplace. Hillcrest does have several service providers and consumer electronics deals in the wings. From a market-timing point of view, Logitech is right on the dime.

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    ROCKVILLE, Md., Aug. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Hillcrest Labs today announced

that its patented Freespace(TM) motion-control technology is being debuted

by Logitech, the world's leading manufacturer of computer mice. Logitech is

using the technology in the new Logitech(R) MX Air(TM) Rechargeable

Cordless Air Mouse. Freespace technology was initially designed by

Hillcrest Labs for use in advanced television remote controls such as

Hillcrest Labs' award-winning Loop(TM) controller. It enables

consumer-electronics manufacturers and service providers to embed advanced

motion control capabilities into a wide range of devices and form factors.

    Unlike conventional mice, people are not limited to using the MX Air

mouse on a surface. Instead, the MX Air mouse works on the desk and in the

air, enabling effortless navigation and control of digital media with just

a flick of the wrist. The rechargeable MX Air mouse features gesture-based

commands, a touch-sensitive scroll panel, a wireless range of up to 30

feet, and a sleek design.

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We had a chance to chat with Minerva Networks about motion control and its place in the set top box.

According to Minerva, the only thing standing in the way of a great, interactive, motion-enabled user experience over the cable TV networks is an installed base of tens of millions of boxes that would have to be tossed and replaced.

Minerva believes that there is not a business model around that supports that kind of revolutionary change.

“There is a massive legacy of installed boxes that would have to be purged and replaced,” says Matt Cuson, vice president of marketing at Minerva Networks in Santa Clara, CA. He does not see anything of the sort happening soon – either with satellite TV or cable TV.

“You are dealing with a conservative, slow moving industry that will be making the decisions,” he points out. This is not to say that either Cuson or the cable operators are in any way opposed to motion applications. It is simply that the weight of that installed base is pressing down on any such change.

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Our focus here at the Motion Applications Report is on consumer (TV, gaming, PC, consumer electronics) uses of motion sensing. But there’s a wider market out there that definitely has an effect on our areas of interest — as more suppliers are entering the market, we are seeing technology and products “trickle” back and forth between markets.

The UK’s Components In Electronics has an interesting piece up regarding  ADI’s efforts in moving deeper into the industrial market for motion sensing — and beyond the gaming and automotive (air bag/crash sensor) markets where the company has lived thus far. In a nutshell, ADI has two groups in the motion sensing arena: the iMEMS group responsible for the Wiimote sensor (and other devices) and a newer iSensors group designing MEMS sensors for industry.

Read the full piece here.

Tech.co.uk has an interesting piece up regarding the impact that sensor sales have had on the two Wii vendors — both ADI and ST Microlectronics are seeing enough of an impact from their contributions to the Wiimote and Nunchuck remote that they’ve had to expand production. ADI is converting a facility to full-time sensor only production, and ST Microelectronics is standing up a new production line in Milan dedicated to accelerometers as well.

It’s not just Wii, as the article points out — the overall sensor market tripled in 2006.

Read the full article here.