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Google acquires hand-gesture interface startup Flutter

App uses built-in Webcams to detect hand gestures, allowing users to control the playback of music and video with the swipe of a hand.

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Steven Musil Night Editor / News
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
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Steven Musil
Flutter

Flutter, a company that makes a hand-gesture interface for simple media, announced Wednesday it's been acquired by Google.

The 3-year-old startup uses a device's built-in Webcam to detect users' hand gestures, allowing them to control the playback of music and videos on a variety of applications with the swipe of a hand. The app, which the company describes as the "Kinect for iOS X," is also available for the Windows operating system.

Flutter CEO Navneet Dalal announced the acquisition in a home page note that said the company would continue to update the app.

"Today, we are thrilled to announce that we will be continuing our research at Google," Dalal wrote. "We share Google's passion for 10x thinking, and we're excited to add their rocket fuel to our journey."

Google confirmed the acquisition to The Next Web, which first reported the news.

"We're really impressed by the Flutter team's ability to design new technology based on cutting-edge research," Google said in a statement. "We look forward to supporting and collaborating on their research efforts at Google."

Google declined to reveal the terms of the deal.

In June 2012, San Francisco-based Flutter raised $1.4 million in seed funding from Andreessen Horowitz, NEA, Spring Ventures, and Start Fund, according to TechCrunch.