Motorola announced that its VC arm, Motorola Ventures, made an investment in Sensitive Object, a leader in multi-touch anywhere platforms and natural user interface (NUI).
Here’s what we know about Sensitive Object (from the press release):
The company was created in October 2003 with an innovative and patent-protected technology capable of “tactilizing” any surface. This unique software technology leverages acoustics to analyze sound waves departing from the point of a touch to precisely and cost-effectively transform any product into a touch device. Sensitive Object’s ReverSys software can be deployed in any product benefiting from “touch-based” user interfaces including touch screen and touch control in various markets such as mobile devices.
Sensitive Object’s Anywhere MultiTouch platform extends tactilization to any surface of a device allowing for virtual controls and next generation user-interfaces. As touch and haptics have become standard interaction expectations for personal computing and handheld devices, Sensitive Object demonstrates that acoustic (vs. resistive, capacitive, and optical) tactilization is the state of the art in terms of both performance and cost, and its platform will set a new standard for full 3D device tactilization.
Aside from the official quote that includes “words of excitement” from both sides, we’ve no clue what exactly Motorola plans to do with the technology acquired. We do, however, hope whatever they do with it will reflect (positively, of course) in their handset portfolio…