Plantronics to sponsor Sundance Hackdance, first celebrity-driven hackathon

SANTA CRUZ, USA: Plantronics, a pioneer in wearable technology announced that it is a sponsor of Hackdance, the first celebrity-driven hackathon whose mission is to design apps and hacks that use technology to create social impact, being held on Jan. 16-18, 2014 in Park City, Utah.

The company will award a $5,000 cash prize to the winning team whose hack showcases the best uses of Plantronics' Wearable Concept 1 device. Additionally, all winning team members will receive Plantronics audio devices. Plantronics is challenging celebrity hackers to create unique applications that leverage the contextual information generated from multiple sensors in the device.

Plantronics will provide celebrity teams at Hackdance, the first celebrity-driven, social impact hackathon, with a wearable concept device built by PLT Labs known as Wearable Concept 1. Wearable Concept 1 is equipped with a low-latency, nine-axes sensor which tracks head orientation in three dimensions: heading, pitch and roll (the X, Y and Z axes).

It also features tap detection and free-fall detection. Open APIs enable developers to leverage the onboard MFI chip for ease of integration with the iOS platform over Bluetooth as well as the Windows operating system. Sample applications can be found at the PLT Labs site.

Celebrity team leaders include: Adrien Grenier, actor; Mekhi Phifer, actor; Fabien Cousteau, filmmaker and explorer; Sarah Austin, actress and founder and Alex Ebert, musician (Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros).

Demonstrations will showcase Plantronics applications that highlight the capabilities of the Wearable Concept 1 device including a gesture based UI, free fall detection, Smart Presence, mapping integrations and more. These use cases will be available for event participants to leverage in their projects.