Home Forums A Cool Little Device - Leap Motion

I've been watching this device for a while now. And soon(May 2013) it will actually be coming to the market. The device is called Leap Motion. It's a very precise motion controller. It's been marketed as a mouse-killer, and has promised to revolutionize human-computer interaction. I don't really buy into that though. I really like resting my elbow on the arm of my chair and my wrist on the desk as I almost effortless move the mouse pointer around my screen. However, I do think that Leap Motion will find its own market. I could see it being especially useful for situations that require no-touch (e.g. surgery).

I think I remember reading that Lenovo was going to incorporate these devices in a line of laptops. Best-buy is the only authorized retailer, but you can still buy it straight from LeapMotion.

Leap Motion was released to developers early. I look forward to seeing what kind of programs they've already made.

There are a bunch of cool videos all over the web that show this product in use. Y'all should check them out!

Just ordered (pre-ordered) two.
I'll let you know.

In our development unit we jumped into their dev program; didn't get the early hardware, but look forward to doing some interesting things once we got our gear.

Was kind of like getting a ticket to I/O 2013.

Mario,

Can you post those links? I don't even know what these are. Of course, I will in five minutes after some Googling.

LeapMotion:

https://www.leapmotion.com/

and the ref to I/O:
http://www.androidcentral.com/google-io-2013-registration-now-open

Missed my shot @ a new pair of G-Glass bling.

Thanks for posting the links, Indy.

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Here are two pictures of the device in action.



<- You can't see the sensor in this picture, but I think it gives a good idea of some of device's precision with respect to a still-object (the hands).















<- The device is pretty small. You can see it just above the keyboard. It connects to the computer via USB.










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I've pre-ordered one myself .

I think my arm would get tired holding it in front of the screen. It's going to be hard to displace Apple's original mouse. (No MS did not invent the mouse) However the multi-gesture trackpad is really close (except for gaming)

Haha, I had forgotten that Apple was responsible for the mouse. The trackpad is alright. Back when I owned a laptop, I used the trackpad only when using a mouse would be too uncomfortable, e.g. sitting on a couch with my laptop.

But back to LeapMotion. Now I'm wondering if holding up your hands is a requirement. I don't think it should be. Maybe you could use your relaxed-fist as a mouse? Still, that's a super expensive mouse. And perhaps you can get rid of the circuity of a keyboard, if you put a material in the keys that can be detected very well by infrared cameras (plenty of people online think that LeapMotionuses these).


Lastly, I found this on the LeapMotion website.
So I guess they changed their message of "replacing the mouse." I said earlier that I didn't it see it as a mouse-killer, but if the cost goes down then maybe it could be that and something more.

Too bad they did not call it the new LCARS interface.

HaHaHa! I kill me!

Actually HP invented the mouse at PARC.

Wikipedia:
Just a few weeks before Engelbart released his demo in 1968, a mouse was released that had already been developed and published by the German company Telefunken.

Xerox PARC did release a mouse-integrated computer, but according to wikipedia it didn't do so well. Apple popularized the mouse. It also availed itself of another Xerox idea, having a GUI.

God bless this internet age.

My bottom line for using this in the exam room is when I can keep my fingers on the keyboard, raise my right index fingertip about a cm above the keyboard to move the pointer to somewhere on the screen, and raise my left index fingertip to click.

Now that would be worth a lot.

I want to cut out the mouse and thousand click days.

Update: Release has been delayed until July 2013.

Rats, still waiting

I may wait until a device can read brain waves directly.....

Gene

They were working on that a while ago. You could actually buy them from OCZ 5 years ago. Far from perfect though.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2469/2

It's more of an assisted device.

OCZ 5 years ago is really a nice and looks so great with beautiful design and clearly mention company logo.

July 22.

Hey, look, the New York Times has released an app for the Leap Motion controller.

Does anyone know when the Amazing Charts Leap Motion app is due out?

Just as soon as we finish it. ;-)

Received mine yesterday. Installed it and used it with google earth. Very cool. From what I briefly looked at you cannot use it for generalized apps yet. They have to be able to use the device as an input. Will know more when I play around with it.

I'd be very interested in how this works out for you! You are certainly an early adopter!

Received mine in the mail about a week ago. It's a novel device, but better software really needs to be developed for it. If you download the right app from the airspace store (this is leap motion's app store) you can use the device as a mouse for all your desktop applications. But using it like this is really frustrating. Tasks like clicking (which is done by pushing your finger in towards the screen) take like 5 seconds, which frankly is counter-productive.


It's definitely not there yet. In fact, you have to keep your hands about 4cm above the device otherwise it won't pick up your fingers very well (I'm not sure why this is). I have doubts as to whether Leap Motion will ever get there. One issue with the technology is that of infrared interference. Computer screens give off enough Infrared Radiation to dampen the precision of the device. So you have to keep the sensor far away enough from the screen. In the picture I posted above, the guy using the device has the Leap Motion controller in between his keyboard and computer screen. It's a misleading picture. The best place for the device is before the keyboard. And the best way to use the device is with t-rex arms (though this can be fixed with better software).

Anyone else care to relate their experiences with Leap Motion? Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

This article summarizes how I feel about purchasing leap motion.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2044909/leap-motion-first-impressions-theres-work-to-do.html

Very frustrating! I would not recommend it right now, because the motions needed to scroll, click right click is too difficult to master if you only intend to use this device occasionally. I can see where a disabled person who would use the device exclusively would probably master the gestures over time. Using a mouse, even a trackball or touch pad are currently far superior for current applications. Even Google earth on a small screen is better to navigate with a mouse then the leap motion device.