Geeks who just can’t get enough of color match on a plastic cube now have accelerometers to thank for the newest version for the latest iteration of the Rubik’s Cube. Dubbed the Fentrix Cube, in loose homage to its inventor –a Brit named Andrew Fentem — the Rubik-rip-off (or “emulation” as it is referred to on YouTube) has multi-colored LEDs activated in the same manner as touch-screen computers.

Fentem related on his corporate Web site the “primary aim of [his] research work has been the creation of intellectual property relating to the design of electronic entertainment devices.” This research has yielded some “innovative machine art.”

Like its progenitor, the Fentix Cube features a six-sided, multi-touch, touch-screen that can be used to create patterns, play games, or simply spun to reconstitute solid colors on the sidewalls. Not surprisingly, the gadget packs a 3D sensor array of accelerometers in its guts.

Folks who are thinking stocking stuffer on this will have to bop over to the web site of the Kinetica Museum in London, England, the device’s sole marketer. There might be a bit of a wait, however. As of the end of November, there is a notice the cube is “coming soon.”

There may be more games developed for the Sony PlayStation 3 in the coming months, thanks to a drastic cut in the cost of the PS3’s developer’s kit.

According to a Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) spokesman, the price for its PS3 Reference Tool will drop to 950,000 yen in Japan, US $10,250 in North America and €7,500 in Europe.

There is little question that the move is in reaction to the on-going market battle between PS3 and the Nintendo Wii. The $249 basic Wii kit has dominated the market of late, and PlayStation 3 needs a boost. Some cool new games would be just the ticket.

Back in 2005, Sony commanded a princely US $25,000 for the developer’s kit. Still, the PS3 garnered a number of third-party games. The simple fact, however, is that PS3 needs more games, more good games.

SCEI said it will integrate programming tools developed by SN Systems, Ltd. as part of the PS3 Software Development Kit (SDK).

The pot is even sweeter. SCEI will enable the Debugging Station for PS3 (DECHA007J/ DECHA007A) to take part in the programming process, effectively assisting PS3 game title development on the Reference Tool (DECR-1000/ DECR-1000A).

The developer’s kit announcement comes at about the same time Sony set a $399 price point for the PS3. Pricing for the 40 GB version was announced on November 4 and was backed by multiple TV spots on shows ranging from football games to Prison Break to Saturday Night Live. There also was a $100 price cut on the 80GB PS3 to $499.

Along with this boost to the PS3 game development environment, SCEI will further reinforce its support system to the development community, and continue to further expand the PS3 platform, the company spokesman says.

Continue Reading �

Wireless phone handsets and consumer-related devices should drive the MEMS (micro electro-mechanical systems) accelerometer market to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in excess of 25 percent for several years.

“The MEMS accelerometer market will see strong, solid growth in the next five years, driven mainly by the technology’s great potential for user interface transformation across multiple industries,” says ABI Research’s Senior Analyst Douglas McEuen. He says he expects the market to show a CAGR of 27 percent to 2012.

The lion’s share of the growth – the big driver – will be the wireless handset market. “That market is massive to begin with,” McEuen explains. He notes that there will be worldwide sales of a billion handsets per quarter. “Even with average penetration, you’ll have huge growth,” he says.

A second substantial growth area will be consumer products, including game consoles, exercise devices, personal navigation devices, laptops and digital cameras. Growth here might be somewhat slower since the typical consumer is not turning over their game console or GPS on a regular basis.

McEuen points to the Nintendo Wii as the big showcase for the MEMS accelerometer market in the gaming arena.

Continue Reading �

Forbes has a good article up about the appeal of the Wii platform for families with small children — the combination of family-friendly software titles and the motion-sensing controller that has “delighted very young children because of its easy-to-grasp style of play and lack of button manipulations”

Just another example of the bonanza of coverage that motion control has gotten Nintendo — now if only their manufacturing can keep up with demand!

Read the whole article here.

EETimes has a new article up about MEMS devices (including motion sensing devices like accelerometers) in consumer devices after last week’s MEMS Executive Conference.

Among those featured in the article are Borland founder Phillipe Kahn, who’s got a new startup called Fullpower Technologies  that’s focused on new operating systems to enable sensors and other MEMS devices in mobile phones and other consumer devices. Kahn was quoted during his keynote at the conference as predicting that we’ll see 10 billion MEMS chips (which could also include MEMS microphones) in cell phones by 2010.

The whole article is worth a read, you’ll find it here.

When a long-time company in the motion control industry makes a deliberate decision to turn away from its proprietary systems and move to open standards, there has to be a good reason behind the decision. For ORMEC Systems Corp. (www.ormec.com), the impetus came when they realized that the market area they had been serving for 25 years was too upper-end and limited for the mass market.

“We do motion control and drives – that’s what we build,” says Dennis L. Morrow, vice president of marketing and sales at ORMEC. While they also have motors, gearboxes, I/O and peripherals, their core business is the motion controller.

For over two decades, the company prospered by catering to industrial applications requiring the most difficult and specialized motion controllers. They list blue-ribbon firms like Johnson & Johnson, Owens-Illinois, B&H Labeling, and C.G. Breitling on their client roster.

Continue Reading �

Reggie Fils-Aime , of Nintendo America, is quoted in a brief but interesting piece on MarketWatch stating that Sony and Microsoft, who’ve foregone motion sensing to a degree (or entirely) have taken the wrong path by focusing on big iron hardware and complex graphics over usability. The article has some counterpoints from competing platform vendors, but we think the bottom line to take away is this : even if the hardcore gamers want FPS and fancier graphics (and, no doubt, they do) the introduction of motion sensing has opened up a lot of new avenues in gaming that were previously shut out (e.g. older gamers, casual gamers, etc.).

The full article is here.

Some of the eye-catching devices shown at last month’s Wearables Conference will be a few years from “prime time,” but show the future of wearable motion devices. Two of the biggies will come from Georgia Tech (www.gatech.edu) research.

The first is called the Ham Bone. It uses two piezoelectric microphones which are pressed to the bases of the user’s wrist. They “listen” to the creaks and rubbing noises of the wrist as it turns. In addition it can identify gestures as the user rubs a finger around near the device.

The second uses a set of proximity sensors in a diamond pattern. The sensors follow motions made by the other hand – and that is an important concept.

“We are tying to figure how to make interfaces with items that are too small to use with touch buttons,” explains Thad Starner. He is founder and director of the Contextual Computing Group at Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Computing and School of Interactive Computing.

Georgia Tech has a long history of research into gesture-based devices. The gestures made can be sent via Bluetooth to a device which the user is controlling.

According to Starner, the devices are just the latest iteration of research from the school’s research efforts. They are based on standard MEMS from Analog Devices.

Before joining the Georgia Tech faculty in 1999, Starner gained international recognition at the MIT Media Laboratory as one of the world’s leading experts on wearable computers during his doctoral work “Wearable Computing and Contextual Awareness.”

Much of what Starner does is in the area of pure research, as opposed to practical or commercially-driven work. “My research is five to 10 years out (from the market),” he says. His goal is to create demonstrations today that will morph into products in the years to come.

“I get to live in the future, quite literally,” he says. In fact, he has been using early versions of devices like those that will be displayed and demonstrated at the Wearables Conference since 1993.