

Asus and Leap Motion Bring Minority Report-Style Gestures to Life - RyanMcGreal
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/01/leap-motion-asus/

======
aufreak3
What do HNers think about the Leap "app store"?

I'm dying to get my hands on one of these awesome things and I have tons of
use for it, but I'm seriously not interested in putting "apps" on Leap's "app
store" and I don't like this trend at all. If, for example, Chrome adds APIs
for extensions and apps to access Leap Motion, I want my cross-platform "app"
to be discoverable on the Chrome store.

With the app store nonsense (imo), I feel Leap is distracting themselves from
the real task of getting their device out on every damn machine out there and
getting their SDK into every dev's hands.

Disagree? I'm all ears.

~~~
Lost_BiomedE
I think the app store is a good idea for the business and consumers. They need
a place where everyone knows leap apps can be found to help drive the consumer
adoption. Now, the implementation and/or restrictions is the make or break.
There isn't any reason that they couldn't make your example feasible.

~~~
EliRivers
I remember when we would just use "the web" as a source of apps we could
download (although we called them "programs" back then). Everyone knew about
"the web" and it was easily searchable using search engines such as Google.

~~~
jacquesm
Then they used 'download.com' and 'tucows.com'.

~~~
EliRivers
Sadly, I expect many people did, rather than just going to the page of the
people who actually made the software. With a "modern" app-store there's no
choice, but using that kind of redistributor was just bloody silly.

~~~
travem
Actually I often had to warn friends and family against downloading random
programs of the internet (as I am sure many of us have). Although to people
who frequent hacker news it may be "bloody silly", for others having a
"trusted" third party is often preferable to dealing direct for a whole host
of reasons. See for example Amazon Marketplace, Etsy, eBay, etc...

------
monk_e_boy
I wonder how useful it'd be to make 3D models of things.

I'd imagine waving my broken shower head over it for a while, then using some
sort of 3D magic software I could get a half decent CAD file that I could 3D
print and repair that bad boy.

~~~
pretoriusB
I don't think that's the idea behind this interface.

Besides, what you ask already exists, in the form of 3D scanners.

~~~
__--__
No, but it could be useful for manipulating 3d objects in CAD programs.

------
amalag
I was excited when I saw the leap motion demo a few months ago. I didn't
realize that it was 8 cubic feet of space, i thought it was just 2-3 feet from
the device.

Being bundled with Asus is nice, but I think it's difficult for a PC maker to
differentiate themselves.

When you go to buy a computer does anyone decide feature wise between an Asus
or a Samsung? One big decision is Mac or PC. When you decide PC, you look for
some deals or good prices.

~~~
aufreak3
> i thought it was just 2-3 feet from the device.

You're right.

2 feet x 2 feet x 2 feet = 8 cubic feet.

------
monk_e_boy
Do you think you could point it at your face and use your eyes to
select/activate a window?

~~~
RyanMcGreal
I could see it being really helpful for accessibility for people with
disabilities.

------
forgotAgain
In reviewing the videos it seems that the device can be in a look-up mode or
in a look-sideways mode. Does anyone know if it works in look-down mode?

By look-down I visualize it attached to the top of my display and looking
down.

The advantage would be that your hands are supported by a table. This would
lower the muscle strain when interacting with a device for a long period of
time.

~~~
knowaveragejoe
If it can do look-sideways, I can't see why not. Simply reverse/invert output
where necessary, no?

~~~
forgotAgain
I'm thinking of background noise caused by reflections from an underneath
table.

------
IanDrake
Can't wait to see how this goes. I can't imagine why MS hasn't bought them
yet. Seems like the perfect fit for Win8.

~~~
danmaz74
I really hope MS will not buy them - it would be a real pity to have this new
technology limited to Windows

~~~
rhokstar
Absolutely.

------
tomp
Does anyone have any idea how this works?

~~~
pavlov
I have one of the Leap prototype units through the SDK program. (They say
there's no NDA and they want people to talk about it, so it should be ok to
post my observations here...)

My unit doesn't have the final casing, so the basic components are in plain
sight. There are two cameras and some infrared LEDs. The LEDs appear to emit a
sequence of pulses which is seen by the cameras at a high frame rate --
somewhere in the Leap docs it's mentioned that the highest frame rate sent by
the device over USB is around 300 fps.

The magic is in the processing, of course. I don't know how that is split
between the device and the Leap driver running on the host computer.

The data obtained through the SDK is preprocessed into hands that are further
divided into fingers or "tools" such as a pencil being held by the user. It
doesn't seem to be possible to get raw depth data, but the hand data is high
quality and the latency is impressive -- it feels very good in use.

~~~
pfraze
RE: the infrared LEDs, I believe that's how the kinect works as well.

~~~
pavlov
The Kinect is a bit different. It has one regular camera, one infrared camera
and an infrared projector. It projects a random-looking pattern which is seen
by the camera and analyzed by the unit's firmware. The pattern's perspective
and scale distortions are mapped into depth coordinates (perhaps aided by the
visible light camera image). The device then outputs RGB+depth images via USB
with a maximum frame rate of 60 fps.

The Leap doesn't have an infrared projector that could emit a precise pattern,
but it has two infrared cameras that run at a much higher rate than the
Kinect's. I think the Leap's depth detection is based primarily on stereo
vision mapping with some kind of temporal component.

~~~
pfraze
Ah, interesting. Thanks.

------
tocomment
So does this have high enough spacial resolution that you could have an
augmented reality system create a virtual keyboard in from of you and you
could type on it?

I'm picturing a future full (virtual) keyboard interface for google glass.
Thoughts? concerns?

~~~
debacle
You need to think bigger. This is the future of teledildonics.

------
Inufu
Interesting tidbit about preordering: They claim to only bill when they ship a
device, but ask for Credit Card information. Ergo they need to store cc
information in clear text somewhere.

Leak in 3.. 2..

~~~
altcognito
I could be wrong but I think some of the credit card tokenization models allow
for billing at a later date. (as in, give the CC information now, receive a
token, use that token later to charge)

~~~
alok-g
I presume then that is how restaurants add tip to a credit card charge after
returning it to the customer. I always used to wonder.

~~~
ewang1
I think restaurants pre-authorize your card for some percentage over the
actual tab, and then just capture the final amount including tips.

