An Accessory That Replaces Mouse Movements With Hand Waves
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| Conducting Orchestras by simply waving the fingers. |
It has been nearly 50 years since Douglas Engelbart, an Engineer at the Stanford Research Institute, invented the first Computer Mouse.
Since then, his basic point-and-click input scheme has remained
fundamentally unchanged. Even the trackpads and touchscreens work on the same guiding principle.
Now Leap Motion, a San Francisco company, is aiming to reinvent
human-computer interaction. It's three-inch-long motion-capture device,
known simply as the Leap. It allows the user to control the computers and manipulate onscreen objects by just waving their fingers.
Connected to any Windows or Mac OS X computer, the Leap uses a
combination of infrared LEDs and 1.3-megapixel camera sensors to monitor
movement in an 8-cubic-foot field. Leap’s software runs custom
algorithms to convert what the device sees into a 3-D map of the user’s
hands.
The system detects movements as small as one-hundredth of a
millimeter.The Leap is small
enough for manufacturers to integrate into existing laptops and tablets,
which could happen as early as next spring.
Out of the box, the Leap will be able to take over basic onscreen
navigation.. Leap Motion plans to ship
the first round of devices to software developers and will eventually
launch a dedicated app store. Developers have already proposed apps for
sculpting virtual clay, conducting orchestras and even translating sign
language into text.
The Leap
Dimensions 3 by 1 by 0.3 inchesRange 8 cubic feet
Price $70
Availability February 2013
-Akarshi A Taneja
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