- Title: WEST BANK: West Bank start-up develops 'hands-off' computing
- Date: 2nd March 2014
- Summary: NABLUS, WEST BANK (RECENT) (REUTERS) PLAYFRESCO CEO, FIRAS ABDULHAQ, DEMONSTRATING PLAYFRESCO MOTION TECHNOLOGY WITH ROLL OF DUCT TAPE (SOUNDBITE) (English) PLAYFRESCO CEO, FIRAS ABDULHAQ, SAYING: "He grabbed whatever he has in the environment, and make it his favourite game. And he enjoyed it really, really much. So it came to my mind, okay, what if I can make my product do this thing? What if I made this great circuit, this great project like, lets you enjoy whatever you have in your environment and make it as your great exciting game." HAND MOVING OVER SENSOR TO CHANGE MUSIC TRACKS ON MOBILE PHONE ABDULHAQ DEMONSTRATING MOVING HAND OVER TABLE TO CONTROL COMPUTER ABDULHAQ USING PEN TO CONTROL COMPUTER PLAYFRESCO SENSOR ON TABLE NEXT TO PEN TO SHOW SIZE (SOUNDBITE) (English) PLAYFRESCO CEO, FIRAS ABDULHAQ, SAYING: "So imagine you are in the kitchen and you have dirty hands, you are cooking or something, and then you cannot touch your phone actually because you'll make it dirty, so imagine that you can swipe over the closet or over the table of your kitchen to change the track, to go into 'previous;' to go into 'next track' to use 'volume up', 'volume down', so I think it will give a natural way to control things." HAND MOVING TO DEMONSTRATE CHANGING MUSIC TRACKS ON MOBILE PHONE/SENSOR IS UNDER MAT ENTRANCE TO AN-NAJAH UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND GEOLOGY STUDENTS IN UNIVERSITY GROUNDS ABDULHAQ WALKING THROUGH UNIVERSITY GROUNDS (SOUNDBITE) (English) PLAYFRESCO CEO, FIRAS ABDULHAQ, SAYING: "It's really hard to get electronics in Palestine. And you don't have the ...you can get electronics, but you can get the basic electronics, you can't get the smaller electronics, you don't have the access to whatever electronics you want. Also you don't have... we don't have 3D printers, that was a problem, so our first prototype was made out of carton actually. It looked really horribly bad and it was really big." VIEW OF CITY FROM OUTSIDE AN-NAJAH UNIVERSITY CITY BUILDINGS (SOUNDBITE) (English) PLAYFRESCO CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, SUDKEY DWIKAT, SAYING: "Representing Palestine with totally, a new, different state of the art project is something totally different and I feel, really, we are proud. We are proud for doing this, yeah." TRAFFIC AND PEOPLE ON STREET VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WALKING ON STREET CITY BUILDINGS
- Embargoed: 17th March 2014 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: West bank
- City:
- Country: Palestinian Territories
- Topics: Communications,Entertainment,Technology
- Reuters ID: LVA6FGICLTRCE4YI4RI95WKENXO4
- Story Text: The ability to control your smart phone without having to touch it or play video games using a simple roll of duct tape have inspired a Palestinian start-up to develop advanced technology which reads body gestures.
PlayFresco was set up in 2013 when a computer engineering graduate of An-Najah University in Nablus began experimenting with motion control technology. Convinced he was on to a good thing, Firas Abdulhaq teamed up with fellow students Monier Aghbar and Sudkey Dwikat, to see how far they could take the idea. Soon they had the technology, but weren't quite sure how they should use it.
Inspiration struck when 23-year old Abdulhaq saw his nephew playing with a roll of duct tape, pretending it was the steering wheel of a car.
"He grabbed whatever he has in the environment, and make it his favourite game. And he enjoyed it really, really much. So it came to my mind, okay, what if I can make my product do this thing? What if I made this great circuit, this great project like, lets you enjoy whatever you have in your environment and make it as your great exciting game," Abdulhaq said.
PlayFresco is a device which can sense a user's movement, gestures and distance. It can be placed under any table, translating the body's movements into digital signals which are sent to a computer or mobile device. While the team's initial experiments were with computer games, Abdulhaq says using the sensor with mobile devices allows for many other applications.
"Imagine you are in the kitchen and you have dirty hands, you are cooking or something, and then you cannot touch your phone actually because you'll make it dirty, so imagine that you can swipe over the closet or over the table of your kitchen to change the track, to go into 'previous;' to go into 'next track' to use 'volume up', 'volume down', so I think it will give a natural way to control things," he said, adding that eventually the sensor will be able to work with any device that has a bluetooth connection.
The product has begun to attract funding, and the team has spent three months in Europe showcasing PlayFresco at technology competitions and festivals. In October PlayFresco secured second place at Poland's E-nnovation competition for startups, following this with selection for TechCrunch's Hardware Battlefield competition at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. However the team say they had to drop out of the January competition as they were unable to secure visas to the United States in time for the event.
As a Palestinian company, PlayFresco faces challenges. Abdulhaq says that while many members of start-up teams are faced with deciding whether or not to give up their jobs to follow their entrepreneurial dreams, it's particularly difficult to do so when unemployment in the West Bank is as high as 23 percent and every jobs is prized. Abdulhaq himself made the difficult decision to give up a position at a programming company in Nablus to work on PlayFresco.
There are other practical difficulties as well.
"It's really hard to get electronics in Palestine. And you don't have the ...you can get electronics, but you can get the basic electronics, you can't get the smaller electronics, you don't have the access to whatever electronics you want. Also you don't have... we don't have 3D printers, that was a problem, so our first prototype was made out of carton actually. It looked really horribly bad and it was really big," Abdulhaq said.
The team were eventually able to access a 3D printer in Europe to produce their current prototype.
But despite their limited resources, the PlayFresco team members say the support provided by their families, An-Najah University and the greater Palestinian community motivates them to succeed.
"Representing Palestine with totally, a new, different state of the art project is something totally different and I feel, really, we are proud. We are proud for doing this," said Dwikat, the company's Chief Operating Officer.
With interest growing in their product PlayFresco is working on perfecting its prototype, looking to produce a smaller and more elegant design. They will also undergo a period of testing and software enhancement before manufacture begins in the Czech Republic. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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