Microsoft’s Kinect controller has sold million times, but Kinect is about to get some serious competition.
Leap Motion has started showing off its Leap 3D motion controller. It takes the form of a USB device a little bigger than a flash drive, costs $69.99, and claims to offer 200x the accuracy of anything else on the market. That equates to an accuracy of 0.01mm.
Plug Leap Motion into your PC and it is accurate enough to detect even slight finger movements. That allows you to write in midair, perform very accurate pinch-zoom actions, and lets game developers use very specific hand gestures as input for their games. Leap Motion claims that its technology offers a more accurate input method than a mouse or touchscreen, while at the same time opening up the possibility to take interaction beyond just movement and button clicks.
Leap Motion still has some work to do (although you can pre-order it right now). However, this won’t be like Kinect and closed off to certain platforms. Leap Motion wants everyone to have access to Leap 3D and is even planning an app store to allow developers to sell their Leap-compatible software to anyone who owns the motion controller.
