Innovator: Dor Givon Gives Computers and Tablets 3D Powers

May 10, 2013 Leave a comment

Innovator: Dor Givon Gives Computers and Tablets 3D Powers

By Olga Kharif on May 09, 2013

Imagine turning a smartphone into a full-body motion controller similar to the Microsoft (MSFT) Kinect or Nintendo’s (7974) Wii remote. Dor Givon, 41, has developed software that enables a device equipped with a standard 2D camera to register movement in three dimensions. “Every camera in the world today can be transformed to 3D,” says Givon, chief technology officer of Israeli startup Extreme Reality.

Givon’s software, Extreme Motion, uses a running video feed from the 2D cameras built into most laptops and tablets to map a person’s body and recognize his movements. Its algorithms calculate angles of limbs and joints to interpret the 2D images in 3D, adding depth to them frame by frame. On a camera-equipped laptop or TV, users can adjust the volume, move the cursor, and play games with a set of hand gestures the software recognizes from across the room. On a smartphone or tablet, the software lets developers add motion commands to mobile games.Samsung (005930) and NEC (6701) already preload Extreme Motion on some of their PCs, and several top video game makers are incorporating it into tablet and PC games due out this year. “It really adds a lot,” VTree Chief Executive Officer Charles Bergen says of supplementing his game Pro Riders Snowboard with motion control. Extreme Reality investor andElectronic Arts (EA) founder Trip Hawkins says, “Extreme Reality’s technology has a huge cost advantage because it is all done in software.”

Givon, who grew up on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, has been obsessed with 3D imaging since he was a long-haired teenager dreaming of making 3D versions of Casablanca and other classic movies. “I was attracted to the movie industry, because it seemed like a world where you could fulfill any fantasy,” he says. His attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder derailed his plan to study physics in college. Instead, he earned his bachelor’s degree in motion pictures from Tel Aviv University while working as a TV news producer; he continued in that job for about a year after he graduated in 2000.

Givon also studied computer science and, while in school, invented a camera that generated holographic images around users. Video-technology provider Micoy, based in Ames, Iowa, bought most of the rights for the camera in 2004. The following year, Givon founded Extreme Reality, which now has 45 employees. The company has raised about $14 million from angel investors and venture capitalists.

So far, Extreme Reality has made its money from licensing fees and percentages of sales from game makers and publishers, Givon says, although he wouldn’t disclose its fee structure. He says his technology can track motion in near darkness, so it could also be used by security software to authenticate users or by intelligence agencies to locate suspects. “We are able to provide far greater accuracy than face recognition,” Givon says. Lewis Ward, an analyst at market researcher IDC, says Givon’s software is “just part of a bigger picture,” but adds, “this is another step in the direction of proliferation of human-motion interfaces.”

Snapshot Extreme Reality can lend 3D functions to 2D cameras

Potential Applications Video games, security and surveillance software

Investment $14 million from angels and VCs

Filed under TMT Trends

Unknown's avatarAbout bambooinnovator
Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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