GestureTek bestows Wiimote powers on cell phones. Just maybe not your phone.

GestureTek Mobile has bestowed the powers of movement-based navigation, popularized by the Nintendo Wii, upon cell phones. The one crucial difference: no Wii tennis elbow.

Since the technology in GestureTek Mobile's EyeMobile Engine is purely optic rather than hardware-based--unlike the accelerometer that tells iPhone when to jump into landscape mode--wrist motion is powerful and specific.

Here's an example from the demo: just click the soft key to zoom in on the map, and tilt the phone back and forth to zoom in and out. Do it again holding the scroll button to activate the motion detection, and tilt the handset from side to side to scroll around.

The zoom, scroll, and slow controls initiate motion response.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

The demo also included games on Japanese phones, offering a glimpse of the future for us North American slackers. In one game, I rotated the phone in all directions to guide my sky-diving character through clouds to a landing target, all the while avoiding flying objects and collecting apples for points (apples?!). In a bowling game, I held down the center key to produce a digital bowling ball and whipped my arm upward to release it. It turns out that my GestureTek bowling score is pretty true to real life.

While those cool 3D games won't be available in this continent for a while, some technology, like the map I tested, is already available for Windows Mobile 6 and selected models for Verizon, Alltel, and Cellular South, with more to come. In Japan, advanced phones are already sporting 3D games made with the EyeMobile Engine tilt technology.