Gesture control company Pebbles has announced that it will be joining Facebook's virtual reality team, Oculus. The startup, founded and based in Israel, reportedly has had a million deal with the social networking giant. The Sum has been reported by the Wall Street Journal. This information has not been confirmed by Facebook, and other details of the deal have not been divulged.
The social company has been working on the development of the Oculus VR Headset. It is a virtual reality device which, when incorporated with the Pebbles technology, has allowed users to see images of their hands and arms. It can even show the users' clothes and other body features like scars. The new development will be a big step for the virtual reality technology, as no similar device currently in the works has been reported to be able to do the same.
Facebook has acquired virtual reality headset maker Oculus last year. The creation of the VR headset began at around the same time. Pebbles will be joining Oculus in making the hardware and improving the internal, computer-based properties of the upcoming device. One of Pebbles' expertise, tracking, has been reported to be included in the VR headset.
Said Oculus of the deal, "Pebbles will be joining the hardware engineering and computer vision teams at Oculus to help advance virtual reality, tracking and human-computer interactions."
"At the same time, we've seen virtual reality make huge strides, changing the way people interact with one another. At the forefront of that shift is Oculus, and joining Oculus will help advance our vision building immersive experiences and revolutionizing digital human interaction," Pebbles, on the other hand, said of the acquisition and the progress of virtual reality technology, in a written statement.
Pebbles Ltd. is a gesture technology startup from Israel, based in Kfar-Saba. The company has produced gesture control technologies over the last five years, since it has been founded. Israel is home to some notable 3D-sensing and gesture companies such as 3DV System and Omek Interactive. The two companies were acquired by Microsoft and Intel, respectively.
Facebook joins Intel, Microsoft and Apple with its recent acquisition of Pebbles Ltd. The three companies have made similar deals in the recent years.
