Leap Motion is getting very close to changing the way we interact with computers. The company has created a unique device that has given users the ability to control their computers with only their hands. Not a touch screen, but with Minority Report-like capabilities.
As stated on the company website leapmotion.com:
“Imagine if you could do things on your computer just like you do them in real life. If natural movements replaced all those clicks and taps and drags and drops. Imagine if technology finally figured out people, instead of the other way around. That’s the Leap Motion Controller.
It senses your hands and fingers and follows their every move. It lets them move in all that wide-open space between you and your computer. So you can do everything without touching anything. It’s the tiny device that will change the way you use technology. It’s the world’s most natural technology that just might change the world.”
That is something that the world has been imagining for a very long time. And while certain companies have executed similar ideas, no one has done it this well. But there’s something else that makes this a bit more special. One would think that this kind of technology would be wildly expensive, tens of thousands of dollars right? Nope, it will be available for the masses. As reported by mashable.com:
“After more than five years of development, a proprietary technology has emerged that synthesizes the shape and movement of the human hand to produce movement onto a computer. It’s called The Leap — and for an astonishingly low price of $70, you can begin to control a computer with nothing more than your hands.”
In what they’re calling a NUI (Natural User Interface). It was important to founders from the outset they wanted to solve the problem for everyone and not just deep-pocketed, large companies:
Accessibility remained a top priority throughout the development of The Leap. Buckwald says that when he and Holz began shopping the technology to venture capitalists, the team was heavily encouraged to eschew the greater public and sell The Leap as a professional device with a barrier of entry — costing in the tens of thousands of dollars. The team staunchly blocked the request and continued down the path of a consumer product.
“The reason we created this technology was because we felt like there was a serious problem with the way people interacted with computers, and we felt like until the problem was solved, mankind would be missing out on an enormous amount of potential, power and opportunity.” Buckwald says. “We wanted it to be ubiquitous immediately.”
This type of innovation is as ground-breaking as when Apple and Microsoft began utilizing Xerox’s Graphical User Interface to create our present-day computer interactions.
It’s also ironic that the device is launching this month, considering the father of the computer mouse, Douglas Engelbart, died today. And now in an almost perfect cycle, the next generation will be born.
The device should start shipping by the 22nd of this month. And I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these. The implications of this type of technology are endless, and the fact that it will be available at such an accessible cost means that some pretty creative uses should be coming down the pike.
