Ivan Poupyrev is a name you’ve probably never heard. Sony and Disney, however, are companies you’re very familiar with. Ivan worked at Sony for eight years and at Disney for five years in the field of interaction design. He’s not the guy that puts pixels on screen, but instead he figures out how you interact, for lack of a better word, with an object. As an example, one of Ivan’s projects was to turn an ordinary household plant into a musical instrument.

What does any of this have to do with mobile? I have no idea. Ivan is going to work in Motorola’s Advanced Technology and Products (ATAP) division, which according to Fast Company, is headed by a former head of DARPA. For those unfamiliar with DARPA, that’s the American Military’s top secret research and development lab. They invented the internet, among many other things.

How exactly is Ivan going to change how we interact with our phones? Again, I don’t know. I’m familiar with the work Nokia’s research labs have publicly announced, and they’re doing things such as making smartphones where the entire device is touch sensitive, not just the giant glass screen on the front. That could be a potential direction. Ivan could also be working on something that’s not even smartphone related, it could be a watch or other type of wearable.

Hopefully we’ll find out soon.