Flutter is a
gesture recognition
Gesture recognition is an area of research and development in computer science and language technology concerned with the recognition and interpretation of human gestures. A subdiscipline of computer vision, it employs mathematical algorithms to ...
technology
startup
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses that do not intend to ...
based in
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
, California, United States. Founded by Navneet Dalal and Mehul Nariyawala, the company received early-stage funding from Y Combinator (company), Y Combinator and was acquired by Google in October 2013.
History
The company's first product, Flutter App, allowed users to control apps such as iTunes, Spotify, VLC, and QuickTime using hand gestures. The app utilizes
gesture recognition
Gesture recognition is an area of research and development in computer science and language technology concerned with the recognition and interpretation of human gestures. A subdiscipline of computer vision, it employs mathematical algorithms to ...
technology that works with the webcam on a user's computer. Instead of requiring separate hardware, such as Microsoft’s Kinect, Flutter makes use of the built-in webcam to recognize the gestures of a person's hands between one and six feet away.
The program does not require expensive hardware and is not designed for large movements, such as those used when playing video games—this limits its use to navigational duties. The company plans to achieve profit by licensing the technology to software companies that can then integrate Flutter into their own apps.
Nariyawala stated: "Flutter wants to power the eyes of our devices—in the same way that Siri functions as the iPhone’s ears." Flutter was acquired by Google in October 2013 for US$40 million.
References
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Companies based in San Francisco
Google acquisitions
Gesture recognition
Technology companies established in 2010
2013 mergers and acquisitions
American companies established in 2010