Motion sensing technology has garnered significant mindshare with the advent of Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Kinect Xbox gaming console systems. However, XYZ Wave sees potential beyond the home and is looking to bring motion sensing technology into the world of commerce and public spaces.

With a bold vision to provide intuitive and immersive gesture-based interactions with consumers, this new start-up plans to work with both research and commercial partners to realise the potential of its cutting edge R&D efforts in the marketplace.

“Since 2008, we have been embarking on research collaborations and extensively exploring the emerging trends in motion sensing and intuitive gesture-based interaction technologies,” said Mr Ho Chee Yue, Managing Director of XYZ Wave. “In October 2009, we felt that we were ready to push the commercially viable technology into the market and the company was finally established.”

He believes that the success of current models will pave the way for a broader adoption of motion technologies.

“Microsoft’s Kinect business has helped raise awareness of gesture-based interaction technologies,” said Mr Ho. “And more recently, Samsung, with the inclusion of gesture interaction feature in their television sets, will increase the adoption rate of gesture-based interaction beyond the gaming community.”

While respecting the success of companies like Microsoft, Nintendo, and Samsung have with the technology, Mr Ho makes it clear that XYZ Wave is pushing the boundaries further and exploring new markets.

“Unlike them, we pick our niche in the out of home (OOH) market and are working towards building a Gesture Out of Home (GOOH) platform,” he said. The OOH market is even bigger than the home entertainment market.”

Over the past two years, XYZ Wave has been engaged in many outdoor deployments at custom events in shopping malls and other outdoor facilities.

“We prototyped the world’s first gesture-based vending machine and pachinko machine, and in the process managed to develop a pretty robust and modular Gesture Recognition In Public Spaces (GRIPS) framework and sharpened our OOH focus on airports,” Mr Ho said.

The team from XYZ Wave. (Photo: SPRING Singapore)

The potential of XYZ Wave’s technology gained attention and the company managed to get the support of SPRING Singapore and the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA).

After a highly competitive process in which the company presented its ideas to a panel of experts, it was awarded the “Proof-of-Value” grant under the Technology Enterprise Commercialisation Scheme administered by SPRING Singapore and IDA. “The approval came as validation and was a confidence booster for us as it was no longer just our opinion that we were heading in the right direction,” said Mr Ho.

By working closely with SPRING Singapore and IDA, XYZ Wave has also benefitted from the various local and overseas networking opportunities.

However, XYZ Wave’s immediate plan is to focus on further developing its core competencies. “We want to strengthen our GRIPS framework and increase our expertise in integrating outdoor, personal, mobile and social facets into an integrated user-centric experience,” Mr Ho said.

The company also plans to leverage its strength in the airport industry. “We are building upon our recent successful test deployments at China airports to prepare ourselves to launch our Airport Experience Centre in 2013,” Mr Ho added. “Airports will become our second home!”