By Allan Maurer

ATLANTA—PlayMotion had a stellar year in 2007, riding one of the hottest new tech areas—increasingly sophisticated ways of interacting with computers. The eventual “Holy grail,” says PlayMotion CEO Scott Burkett, is “the Star Trek Holodeck.”

Today, the company’s motion-based interface applications not only allow gamers to enjoy a full body experience, they’re finding uses in museums, healthcare, zoos, and aquariums.

PlayMotion had an 86 percent growth rate in 2007 and is looking at 300 percent this year, says Burkett. The 12-employee company is hiring and in particular need of engineers. Burkett says that although he doesn’t have time to raise money—which he calls a fulltime job—the company is profitable now.

“If I had the right investor who could really open doors for us and who ‘got’ what we’re trying to do, we’d have talks with them.”

Founded in 2002 by Greg Roberts, CTO, and Matt Flagg, and funded by friends, family and organic growth, PlayMotion evolved from a desire to create technology that enables people to interact with computers in fluid, natural ways.

Baling wire and bubble gum
“Look at computers today,” says Burkett. “They’ve evolved in everything except that we’re still tethered to the keyboard, joystick or mouse,” he tells TechJournal South. “But your body is the ultimate input device. You can do things with the body you can’t possibly do with a keyboard or mouse.”

Burkett says the company’s original product, the Gizmo, was a rudimentary version of what it markets now. “It was held together with baling wire and bubble gum,” he quips, adding that, “the core product evolved in a number of ways, but under the hood it’s the same concept.”

That is, a hardware product that scans a playspace, feeding real time information to software that then renders the output. “We’re in the computer vision space,” Burkett explains. “How do you take a camera’s input and have a computer understand it and do something with what it sees?”

Another approach to the same idea is via haptics, in which computers respond to touch, pressure, or other body inputs.

In search of the Holodeck
“Haptics guys and computer vision guys are all chasing the same thing,” says Burkett. “The Star Trek Holodeck is the Holy Grail.” Speech recognition is another aspect of the new interfaces coming into play. “When the day comes that you combine the visual, haptics and speech recognition, that’s pretty interesting,” he says.

Burkett points out that Greg Roberts’ father had been involved with the U.S. Army’s first virtual reality battle trainer program 20 years ago. Compared to the typical video game today, he says, “It’s like going from the stone age to 2050.”

PlayMotion clients have included: Atari, Nike, Google, AT&T, Turner Broadcasting, the Georgia Aquarium, NASCAR, NASA’s Houston Space Center, Maryland Science Center, Atlanta’s Imagine-It! Children’s Museum, Discovery Science Center, Singapore Science Center, the Greenville Children’s Museum, WonderWorks, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, and numerous others.

The company did a project for Disney World that resulted in an Atlanta Business Journal Article. It added an interactive game that people could play while waiting in line an hour for a three-minute ride. It had up to 300 people playing simultaneously.

Can’t get kids off of it
Its products are also finding uses in pediatric hospitals and rehabilitation clinics, says Burkett. People with disabilities can play its motion-controlled games on a tabletop while sitting down. Some hospitals offer free PlayMotion rooms.

“It’s hard to get kids off the thing,” says Burkett. “We go to events and see kids with cancer or autism in front of PlayMotion. When they realize their movements have an impact on the world around them, they just come to life.”

Museums and aquariums use the technologies to engage visitors in active responses to exhibits.

“We’re seriously, aggressively looking at the home market,” Burkett says. It plans to relaunch its Web site as a social networking platform.

One upcoming technology the company follows closely are new lines of cell phones with “built-in projectors,” says Burkett. “Eventually, PlayMotion will be wherever you want it to be,” he adds. “You’ll just set your phone down and play.”

On the Web: www.playmotion.com

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