Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Philips remote to bring Wii-style controls to TVs

Philips solution to the button-laden madness of remote controls behaves like the motion controllers of Nintendo's Wii.

Philips has a solution to the button-laden madness of today's remote controls, and it behaves a lot like the motion controllers of Nintendo's Wii.

Like the now-iconic Wii remote, Philips' uWand contains accelerometers and a camera that communicates with an infrared sensor below the television. This allows users to point the remote like an air mouse while also flicking or twisting the remote to scroll through long lists of information. The uWand also detects pushing and pulling, which could be used to zoom in and out in a Web browser or 3D menu. For text input, the uWand has a full QWERTY keyboard on its back side.

While the technology itself isn't revolutionary, Philips makes a strong argument for its use in televisions: As connected TVs become more popular, navigation is getting complicated. We're no longer dealing with simple lists of channels. Platforms like Boxee or Samsung's Smart TV present users with multiple panels of information, which make button-based navigation cumbersome.

Philips isn't hogging the uWand for its own products. Instead, the company wants to license the technology to electronics manufacturers and service providers such as cable companies and telcos. Philips hopes to make its first deals this year, resulting in consumer products in 2012.

Of course, there's competition. PrimeSense's motion-sensing camera that helps power Kinect for Xbox 360 is coming to home theater PCs, and a bunch of TV manufacturers at this year's Consumer Electronics Show were demonstrating touch screen remotes for smartphones and tablets. But I'll take any of them over the monstrosity that comes with your typical cable box.

Check out our complete coverage of CES 2011.

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: Boxee, Consumer Electronics, Nintendo, Philips, Samsung, Xbox
References show all

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the CIO comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: CES, CES 2011, consumer electronics, entertainment, HDTV, Home Theater, lcd hdtv, Nintendo, philips
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • SOA and Business Processes: Making the Connection
    Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is also complex, and one of its main characteristics is that an SOA system is comprised of multiple applications that are combined to accomplish critical business processes. Discussions of SOA can quickly grow so complex that the system’s main benefits to an organization are difficult to fully understand. This article discusses SOA Suite 11g, a family of products that take SOA to a new level and correct some of the problems caused by the very combination of components and multiplication of languages that make SOA a flexible, agile system.
    Learn more »
  • Protecting Against the Leading Causes of Data Breach
    This whitepaper was written for the organisation that wants to focus on prevention of data loss and doesn’t have millions to spend, but needs affordable solutions that can be implemented today to protect millions of sensitive records and dollars worth of intellectual property. This whitepaper addresses: - What organisations can do to prevent the four leading causes of data breaches - Why dedicated (pure-play) DLP solutions may not protect you from all four leading causes of data breaches - How to get prevent sensitive data leaving your organisation
    Learn more »
  • Cloud printing in the enterprise: liberating the mobile print experience from cables, operating systems and physical boundaries
    In recent years mobile technology has proliferated throughout the enterprise. Today, virtually no one in the workforce is bound to a desk to work, check e-mail or communicate with co-workers and customers. At the same time, we’re seeing the rise of cloud technologies, loosely defined as online resources, often provided as a service, that manage the data and software that used to run solely on PCs. This merger of mobile and cloud technologies is on its way to becoming one of most significant enablers of business productivity and innovation seen in the past decade. Read more.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.
Recent comments