

Leap Motion: Three Dimensional Gesture Control - wavesound
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428350/the-most-important-new-technology-since-the/

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DanielRibeiro
We've talked about this quite a lot here on HN[1, 2, 3, 4]. It is a cool
technology nonetheless.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4002418>

[2] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4029524>

[3] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4008520>

[4] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4007083>

~~~
JackC
All of those are to leapmotion.com, though. It's exciting to see a third party
saying, "yes, it really is that good."

Because if this really is that good, and that cheap, they've crossed a
fundamental line. We're looking at a hardware accessory that has a good chance
of being as ubiquitous, and maybe even as revolutionary, as the mouse.

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FrojoS
So, despite having spend some time surfing the web, mostly right after the
device was announced, I still don't know how the Leap Motion works. I realize,
that this is proprietary technology so it might be simply unknown. Still, from
a magazine like TR I would expect to hear at least an educated guesses.

They link to a different article [1] which apparently got a demo from one of
the founders. They claim, that _the Leap uses VGA camera sensors_ but then
they talk about a _force field_ \- whatever that is supposed to mean in this
context. _[...] Leap's device tracks all movement inside its force field
[...]_

Earlier, I heard some crude speculations about electro magnetic sensing and a
mathematical breakthrough, that lead to the foundation of the company. But I
have no idea what to think of them. A quick search on google scholar about the
the two founders didn't reveal anything so far, either.

There is a Quora thread [2] on the topic, where someone, without any further
comment linked to a 2012 Microsoft Research paper [3] with the title
_SoundWave: Using the Doppler Effect to Sense Gestures_.

My assumption would have been, that they do indeed use optical cameras only.
By using a bunch of them, combined with different angles and positions as well
as a very limited workspace, they are able to increase the accuracy when
compared to the Kinect. Do we have any hint on whether or not they project an
infrared grid like the Kinect does?

[1] [http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/26/3118592/leap-motion-
gestur...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/26/3118592/leap-motion-gesture-
controls) [2] [http://www.quora.com/Leap-Motion/Does-the-Leap-product-
work-...](http://www.quora.com/Leap-Motion/Does-the-Leap-product-work-as-
advertised) [3] [http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/redmond/groups/cue/pu...](http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/redmond/groups/cue/publications/guptasoundwavechi2012.pdf)

------
aeurielesn
I'm still waiting for the kind of interfaces used in Ironman 2:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KPhqy7ZwHU>

~~~
anigbrowl
Then you will like this likely component of such a system:
<http://www.ultrasonic-audio.com/products/syntact.html>

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JoeAltmaier
Looks cool; has high resolution but what about accuracy? I didn't actually see
him touch anything in particular, just wave around and create lots of swoops.
Can you select an individual item from one of those swarms?

Also, exhausting. Waving your arms all day, just to scroll. Still its coarse
motor control instead of fine motor, which is less tedious.

~~~
JackC
_Also, exhausting. Waving your arms all day, just to scroll. Still its coarse
motor control instead of fine motor, which is less tedious._

Yeah, I'd be shocked if this replaces the scroll wheel. I can see a few ways
it might complement existing input devices, though. One is for maybe a dozen
intuitive, system-wide shortcuts. Like "if I stick out two fingers and twitch
to the right within six inches of the screen, and I'm not in a touch-enabled
app, switch to the next song." (This takes too long to say -- try doing it.)
Or, "if I make the classic 'stop' hand gesture within six inches of the
screen, stop playing music." This may not sound like much, but imagine a
random non-geeky user is playing music in the background and gets a phone call
and wants to pause. I bet 25% or less of users use a system-wide shortcut for
that. I bet 75% or more would intuitively remember and use the "stop" gesture
if you showed it to them once.

A second use case is collaboration. Someone comes into my office and I turn my
screen around and show them a map of a given facility we're working on. (This
happens a couple times a week.) They want to zoom out a little and see what's
to the west of the facility. Instead of asking me to do that, they just reach
in and do it with gestures. They don't think about it, it just works.

The third use case is all those things we do with our hands in real life that
there's no analog for on the computer. Like, say, oil painting. Or conducting.
Or playing rock-paper-scissors. Or air guitar. Or juggling. Or ping pong.
There are a million things we do that involve _holding something in the air
and using it to cause some effect on the world_ , with little or no direct
physical feedback. There are a million more that we haven't thought of yet
because they're not physically possible (but they will be virtually possible).

I'm pretty excited about this.

~~~
StavrosK
I think that 3D modeling is where this will shine. Imagine something like
SketchUp with gestures. Manipulating 3D objects with a mouse is very tedious.

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unwind
It would be neat for tech like this to "revolutionize" TV remotes. TV:s
continue to grow more and more complex, and it's also something you interact
with semi-seldom, in bursts, as opposed to computers (see
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchscreen#.22Gorilla_arm.22>).

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spyder
I agree with others who are saying that waving your arm can quickly become
tiring, but maybe you could point this device on a table so you could rest
your hand on the table (or surface of the laptop) like using a mouse and only
your index finger would be in the air. I think that way it would be less
tiring.

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dsirijus
This should replace trackpads. As, in every laptop out there.

