Title-1 LONDON – Paul Costigan has become CEO of Senseg Oy (Espoo, Finland), a startup company that has developed touch interface technology that generates the feeling of virtual buttons on smooth surfaces. The technology has potential in smartphones, tablet computers and many other consumer and industrial applications.
The company, founded in 2006, is backed by Ambient Sound Investments, the investment vehicle of the founders of Skype. Senseg's technology creates a sensation of touch and texture using an electrostatic field to stimulate the fingers when they are close to or in contact with a display surface. By modulating this attractive force on the fingers a variety of sensations can be generated, including textured surfaces, edges, vibrations and 'key' movements. The company’s patented technology produces tactile sensations with no mechanical vibration and is set to be integrated into a new generation of touch interface devices including tablet computers.
Costigan, formerly COO with Movidius Ltd., will be based at Senseg's offices in Taipei, Taiwan and oversee the company's market entry.
Prior to his time with Movidius Costigan was COO at analog IP developer Chipidea Microelectronica SA and prior to that was co-founder and CEO of Massana a fabless chip company focused on gigabit Ethernet. Massana was acquired by Agere Systems, now part of LSI Corp., in 2003. Costigan began his career as a GSM chipset developer with Alcatel.
Costigan said the technology is working in prototype form and that the company is already working with a number of potential customers with a view to introducing the technology in volume in late 2013. "We're engaged with all the tier-ones," said Costigan. He added: "While the technology is fascinating I joined the company because of the strength of the sales pipeline."
The technology is applicable to all forms of mobile device including those based on Android and variants of Windows. "We are addressing Android initially, because it is so open an environment but we are pursuing all the major architectures," Costigan said.
The company has about 25 employees in three main locations in Cupertino, California, Taipei and Helsinki and has raised about 5 million euro (about $6 million) including Finnish government grants. Senseg is backed by Ambient Sound Investments, Vera Venture, and Veturi Venture Accelerator.
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