Hillcrest Labs and Universal Electronics Inc. (UEI) announced a recently signed license agreement for UEI to use Hillcrest Labs’ pointing and motion-control technology.

Under the agreement, UEI will be exploring potential product concepts to offer pointing and motion-control technology to its customers worldwide. The companies did not release the financial terms of the deal.

“As a global leader in the design and manufacture of remote controls, UEI is consistently at the forefront of innovation,” said Dan Simpkins, CEO of Hillcrest Labs. “We are very proud that UEI has licensed Freespace technology and is investigating ways to incorporate pointing and motion control in the next generation of remote control technologies.”

Hillcrest has demonstrated its patented technology, which it calls Freespace, in a circular TV remote control (The Loop) at industry shows throughout the past few years.

The Freespace technology enables subscription TV service providers and consumer electronics manufacturers to embed advanced motion-control and pointing capabilities into a wide range of devices and form factors.

Freespace-enabled pointing devices use digital signal processing algorithms that rely on gravity and other inertial inputs to determine their position in the air. The algorithms translate motion instantaneously and automatically adjust for natural hand tremors.

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