Aichi steel and Ball-It launch co-operation regarding Magnetic Gaming

Nagoya and Oulu, November 11, 2008 –

A ball-shaped wireless gaming controller that senses geomagnetic field, orientation, direction, speed, air pressure and acceleration will be on display at Aichi steel's stand (booth 244, Hall A2) at Electronica 2008, November 11-14, in Munich

Nagoya and Oulu, November 11, 2008 - Aichi Steel Corporation (Tokyo Stock Exchange : 5482), one of the world’s leading sensor manufacturers, and Ball-IT Oy, a leading provider of advanced real-time wireless sensor solutions, today announced co-operation to bring geomagnetic sensing to gaming applications. Presented at Aichi Steel's stand at Electronica 2008, the golfball-sized controller demonstrates the possibilities of geomagnetic sensing for gaming. The ball also operates as a free-hand personal computer mouse, compass, measuring tape, logging pedometer, or a 3D-object controller.

Enabled by Aichi Steel's MI sensor technology, Ball-IT’s wireless ball controller responds to changes in orientation to the most delicate rotations, and translates those rotations into immediate on-screen action. The sensed orientation can be matched to real world coordinate system to bring more real-life physical aspects to games. Motion and acceleration state of the ball do no affect the orientation determination capabilities which in practice is very useful for many gaming applications. For example, exact orientation of a golf club or tennis racket can be determined in real time during the swing even when gravitation vector is not present due to changing acceleration state.

As a part of co-operation, Aichi Steel acts as Ball-IT representative to certain Japanese gaming segments and customers. Aichi Steel's respected position in Japanese business speeds up Ball-IT's penetration into one of the biggest gaming markets in the world.

"Ball-IT's co-founder Mr.Väänänen, a globally recognized inventor, has been able to create unique approach to motion controlled gaming challenges by utilizing our industry-leading magnetic field sensors," said Dr.Honkura, General Manager, Aichi Steel. "We believe that geomagnetic field sensing and utilization will become one of the defining terms in next generation motion control gaming devices."

“Aichi Steel's ground-breaking innovations in geomagnetic field sensing and physical sensor design have aided us to create this revolutionary gaming controller,” said Johannes Väänänen, Chairman of Ball-IT. “With Aichi Steel's MI sensor range, we have been able to bring completely new user experience to motion control gaming with industry-leading cost and size structure.”

About Ball-IT
Ball-IT Oy is a privately held Finnish company that was established in September 2005. The company aims to become the global leader in the development and production of motion controlled gaming solutions. These solutions include enabling devices and modules as well as core software components for implementing consumer-level User Interfaces.