Oculus continues to put its billions of Facebook dollars into technology acquisitions, announcing today that it has bought Israeli depth-sensing technology firm Pebbles Interfaces (not to be confused with smartwatch maker Pebble). The five-year-old company specializes in "custom optics, sensor systems, and algorithms to detect and track hand movement," according to the Oculus announcement. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Pebbles attracted $11 million in funding in 2013 from investors including SanDisk.
This isn't the fist computer vision company to come under the Oculus umbrella in recent months. Back in December, the company purchased 13th Lab, which specializes in tracking movement, and Nimble VR, which focuses on hand tracking and creating real-time 3D models of real-world objects. In May, Oculus bought Surreal Vision, a company dedicated to mapping entire rooms in 3D as you walk about. And last June, Oculus purchased Carbon Design Group, the firm responsible for designing the Xbox 360 controller.
The rash of computer vision acquisitions is particularly interesting in light of Oculus' recent trade show debut of the Oculus Touch controller, a handheld plastic ring that's used to track hand movements and basic finger gestures. Pebbles' technology works more like Kinect or LeapMotion, tracking finger and hand movements without the need for a handheld controller. That could indicate that Oculus is already looking past the Touch and toward more freeform tracking solutions for future editions of the Rift.
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