
Leap Motion Has Launched - tucif
http://blog.leapmotion.com/post/56148436879/leap-motion-has-launched
======
ahsanhilal
I have actually developed on the Leap Motion device and here are my few
critiques:

1\. There are way too many gestures and motions available. The SDK needs to
provide a solid framework for fewer gestures/motions and the company needs to
make sure that consumers readily understand them. Unless there is a whole lot
of standardization of the platform it will become hard for developers/other
companies to produce a consistent and coherent experience.

2\. I do not like the strategy of lets-throw-it-in-the-wild-and-see-what-
other-people-come-up-with; the tech has loads of cool factor that you will get
people to make interesting stuff with it. However, will that translate into
useable and effective computing software? From my point of view, I have not
really seen a single application on Leap which does something 'better' than a
touch based or mouse-based interface can do. Better meaning more intuitively
and/or more productively

3\. I think one of the biggest challenges for any gesture controlled device is
the shoulder/forearm/wrist/palm pain that is inherently going to be the result
of prolonged gesture-driven interface use. Maybe applications have to use
gestures sparingly?

On a broader note, I still think humans have an inherent desire to touch/feel
interface elements. Being able to directly touch a screen and manipulate it
means I can easily manipulate visual behavior through an actual/physical
connection. Interfaces which disconnect this physical medium seem more alien
to me at least. Maybe I am less evolved as a neanderthal but I don't think we
are ready for a gesture driven interface.

~~~
jre
I think there are a number of specific areas where Leap Motion can be
interesting.

For example, there are some startups that use Kinect to let surgeon interact
with a screen showing patient data during an operation. Some researchers have
also proposed the use of gesture recognition in the context of a worker having
to follow precise instructions for some complex task. Leap motion + Google
Glass could be an interesting combo for interactive training.

I'm sure there are other areas. But I agree with your comment and I fail to
see the mass market use case. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong :-)

~~~
irickt
Leap wants an unspecified cut if you make one of these:

"Specialized Application" means an Application which is: (i) sold, licensed,
leased, or otherwise disposed of for a list price of more than US$500 or local
equivalent, or more than US$240 per year or local equivalent if on a
subscription, lease or similar basis; (ii) sold, licensed, leased or otherwise
disposed of as part of, or for use with, another application, system, machine
or device (other than a personal computer), having a list price of more than
US$500 or local equivalent, or more than US$240 per year or local equivalent
if on a subscription, lease or similar basis; (iii) designed for use, or that
is primarily used, with or for control, whether direct or indirect, of
industrial, commercial, military or medical equipment.

~~~
voltagex_
Suddenly, the device seems a lot less interesting.

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unfletch
Their marketing worked on me. I pre-ordered one. Like many, I suspect, I
ordered mine because it looked like a cool toy, not because I thought it
filled a need.

I've only played with it for an hour or so in total, but so far I'm returning
it. Maybe it's a training issue (on my part; the device doesn't learn, as far
as I can tell), but it just doesn't work very well for me.

The demo apps suggest a severe lack of precision when I'm using it, and
complain that the room is too bright. Coincidentally, it's a stormy, overcast
day, and my office lamp burned out this morning. This is as dark as it'll ever
be in here during the day.

I'll definitely give it some more time (you have 30 days from when it ships to
return it), but I'm not that interested in learning how to move my hands in a
Leap-specific way, or in permanently darkening my office.

~~~
vanderZwan
> The demo apps [...] complain that the room is too bright. Coincidentally,
> it's a stormy, overcast day, and my office lamp burned out this morning.
> This is as dark as it'll ever be in here during the day.

Could it be that it's aimed too much towards the screen? I mean, that's the
most obvious remaining light source.

~~~
unfletch
Could be, it is in front of the monitor, but it's flat on my desk in more or
less the same place shown in most of their demo videos.

~~~
nitrogen
I wonder if your monitor's backlight puts out an inordinate amount of infrared
light. I've noticed interference with IR remote control reception when one of
my LCD monitor's backlights is turned down close to minimum brightness; I'm
assuming that the PWM dimmer frequency (or one of its harmonics) is making it
through the filter used by the IR receiver.

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sairamkunala
Engadget Review - [http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/22/leap-motion-controller-
re...](http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/22/leap-motion-controller-review/)

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millerm
I am so looking forward to getting mine. I ordered the thing in August of last
year. Guess they didn't like my application for a touch free interface for
some hospital software I've worked on to get me an early development device. I
thought the idea of the possibility of zero infection risk interface would be
a great plus for this. But, they wanted apps for the masses I'm guessing.

~~~
abrichr
My proposal was for a medical data manipulation tool for surgeons in an
operating room, and I received one. Maybe I just beat you to it ;)

~~~
millerm
Well, congrats! I hope it's been fun! I'm excited.

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lightyrs
Just tried mine out and am pretty disappointed. Mouse and keyboard seem pretty
revolutionary after 15 minutes with the Leap.

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nooneelse
Could a Leap be mounted on the side of a laptop looking sideways at whatever
table surface happens to be there (if there is one), so as to functionally
give the laptop a big touchpad off to the side?

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Orva
Leap doesn't work (or at didn't work during beta) well or at all if you had
solid object blocking it's viewport. Even if blocking object was behind your
hand.

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abecedarius
I'd be excited to try this if it weren't (as far as I can tell) another use-
the-app-store-or-nothing setup.
[https://www.leapmotion.com/developers](https://www.leapmotion.com/developers)
points to a signup page with a lengthy contract.

~~~
jamesbritt
They told me I'm free to distibute apps outside their store. They are some
things in the sdk that are not redistibutable but I am fairly certain core
libs required to run a program are allowed.

~~~
abecedarius
Thank you! I'll take another look now.

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mrbill
Too bad a lot of people who pre-ordered via Kickstarter haven't even gotten
their shipping confirmations yet.

~~~
millerm
Yeah, I got an update yesterday that my credit card info was no longer valid
and had to enter a new one. Guess I must have replaced the card since then. I
hope I get mine in a timely manner. I'm glad I am not the only one who hasn't
received a confirmation of shipment. Well, not glad... But, perhaps it's just
the norm at the moment and that is somewhat encouraging.

Edited to say: "Man, I use the word 'I' enough in that post."

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kvi
I'm was looking at the order form on their website, and then saw the URL:
[https://store.leapmotion.com/(S(k0erjjqyuqwxmojbybjv6vpx))/P...](https://store.leapmotion.com/\(S\(k0erjjqyuqwxmojbybjv6vpx\)\)/Pages/LeapSolution.aspx)
Is that a hash? It looks weird, and I have never seen anything like this
before.

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sbuccini
I'm not surprised that many of the launch apps are wonky. I developed
something using a Leap for a hackathon, and the Leap is _so_ accurate that
significant time has to be invested to debugging and just playing around with
the app to improve the user experience.

~~~
ggoodale
The accuracy is definitely a mixed blessing - interpolation, velocity
awareness, and (screen-independent) gestures go a long way toward a good user
experience.

~~~
sbuccini
Totally agree, but I just didn't realize how difficult it was to really master
those gestures and harness their power.

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b1daly
Used as a pointing device it will have the same problem as other mouse
alternatives (and mice). The only way to get feedback is through rigid
starting at the screen to keep track of the cursor. This breaks the
relationship between physical action and computer action in the body. My
theory theory is that this adds stress into the nervous system and adds to the
muscular fatigue. If an interface is poorly tuned you can just feel the
anxiety rising if you are trying to get work done.

~~~
kwindla
Depends on what you mean by "feedback". The Leap Motion controller tracks
fingertips and objects absolutely in real space. Applications can easily tie
cursor movement (or viewspace/camera movement, or other interface elements) to
absolute hand position or to spatial offset from an arbitrary position in
three-space. This actually works really, really nicely for applications
designed from the ground up to think this way.

Here, for example, is demo video of a three-space navigation app built on
these principles that uses the Kinect:
[http://vimeo.com/65937620](http://vimeo.com/65937620)

And a simpler demo using the Leap:
[http://vimeo.com/66196803](http://vimeo.com/66196803)

There's no muscle fatigue or stress using these kinds of applications. You get
muscle fatigue (gorilla arm, forearm pain, hand pain) when your ergonomic
setup -- which includes both hardware and software -- forces your body to
conform to motion patterns that are rigidly repetitive, forces you to position
yourself in ways that are awkward relative to your joint kinematics, or forces
you to over-correct inaccuracy or unpredictability in the interface.

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ekianjo
One of our HN Kansai members developed a few demo applications for the Leap
Motion Controller: you can check it out here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b67QedK9jhA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b67QedK9jhA)

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GoNB
Can the Leap Motion be used in addition to the MYO Armband, or would that not
make sense?

~~~
farnsworth
My thoughts exactly! I've preordered my MYO :) Let's throw a Kinect in for
body-scale gestures.

~~~
samweinberg
Don't forget WiSee!

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onedev
I wonder what cool things can be done with a Raspberry Pi and one of these
motion controllers! Both are very small in size.

~~~
gvb
Hopefully lots someday. Nothing today. :-(

 _The Leap Motion Controller works with computers running Mac OS X 10.7 or
10.8, or Windows 7 or 8. It requires a minimum Intel Core™ i3 or AMD Phenom™
II processor, 2 GB RAM and a USB 2.0 port._

~~~
gvb
Update: If you go to the SDK, they _do_ have linux support (version
0.8.0.5300) as a Debian package. From the release notes, it supports: _Ubuntu
Linux 12.04 LTS and Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail_

I was able to install and run it on my Ubuntu 12.04 system. It had a
dependency issue because I had previously upgraded to lts-quantal - the
install did not recognize the OpenGL package because it was (from memory)
"libgl1-mesa-glx-lts-quantal" instead of the expected "libgl1-mesa-glx", but I
did a --force-depends and it installed and ran fine.

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BoppreH
Amazing. I wonder if it's possible to read movements _away_ from the screen?
One big drawback of touch/motion is that it covers the screen, but what if we
put the detection device lower?

The feedback is tight as long as you can continuously see your input, and
motioning lower could help with tiredness.

~~~
ggoodale
The device can be positioned anywhere you like, but I'm guessing there's a
definite learning period if you have it somewhere other than under your
monitor (sort of like what I imagine Wacom users have the first time the use a
screen-mapped tablet).

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mikro2nd
Looked at the page they linked... still have no idea what it is they're
launching, having never heard of it before.

Might be a good idea not to assume that people know what your product is when
you write such a release page...

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GoldfishCRM
This is only the beginning. We would have reacted the same way to the mouse.
Keyboard shurtcuts is better, Mousearm problems etc.

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tlrobinson
Looking forward to combining Leap with the Oculus Rift!

~~~
nsxwolf
I tried to think of an application for that combo and all I could come up with
is this:

You sit down at a virtual PC, and control it by waving your hands over a
virtual Leap Motion. Which is very meta, but perhaps not very interesting.

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umsm
Off topic: But I really like their site design.

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AmVess
This thing is horrible for porn.

My web browser keeps scrolling up and down very rapidly.

