The Leap Motion Is Here

You could say we’re seeing the future of input pointing gadgets here. It’s like what Tom Cruise used in Minority Report. This week, Leap Motion officially starting shipping its shiny new gadget that enables you to interact with your computer in new ways. You can point, select, reach, or grab things without actually touching anything. No mouse, no trackpad, no screen. Just wave your hands in the air.

Now, this is not anything like Samsung’s Air Gesture. It is a whole lot better than the Kinect too. According to the company, the Leap Motion device tracks all ten fingers with a resolution down to 0.01mm. Yes, that’s pretty amazing. Leap Motion is certainly leaps ahead of its competitors.

Leap Motion opens the doors to new interaction modes that will require new apps to take advantage of its capabilities. Sure, you could use it like a mouse, an indeed such an app is provided, but it would not be so interesting. Instead, imagine if you could gesture in space and manipulate, say, a molecule model. Rotate it, pan, pull it closer, push it away, etc. A mouse or touchscreen would not be so natural.

Several sample apps are provided, such as the molecule browser above. But for some fun, how about a customised version of Cut the Rope? Yup. Now, you cut the rope by just slicing it with your finger in mid-air. That is pretty cool, yah?

The Leap Motion has drivers for Mac and Windows. The Touchless app is also available for both Mac and Windows. You get a few sample applications. For more, there is the Leap Motion market place called Airspace. At this time, there are only just under 80 applications, which perhaps might be considered decent as a start. Less than 50% of the apps are free.

One of the fun paid apps is AirBeats. It’s basically air drumming. You play a set of imaginary drums. The app costs US$4.99. For all you aspiring drummers… here’s a cheap set of drums. (Oh yes, you’ve still got to add on the cost of the Leap Motion, but it should work out less than a real set of drums.)

Now on the down side, this relatively new form of input does require some getting used to. The Leap Motion is sensitive, but that also means you’ve got to make sure your motion and gestures are correctly aligned with the input you intended to give. It’s not smart enough yet to figure out what you meant to do, as opposed to what you actually did. I’m sure this could be improved with software tuning.

Another upcoming input gadget that sort of starts a new category of its own is Myo. It is an armband which detects electrical activity in your muscles to figure out what your fingers and hands are doing. Yeah. The use case is, of course, different from the Leap Motion. But clearly moving into the future we’re breaking away from traditional pointer manipulation.