The Future of Computers: Goodbye Mouse and Keyboard, Hello Leap Motion
By now, many of us are aware of the Leap Motion, a small, $70 gesture control system that simply plugs into any computer and, apparently, just works. If you’ve seen the gesture interfaces in Minority Report, you know what it does. More importantly, if you’re familiar with the touch modality — and at this point, most of us are — the interface is entirely intuitive. It’s touch, except it happens in the space in front of the screen, so you don’t have to cover your window into your tech with all those unsightly smudges.
To understand how subtly revolutionary Leap will be, watch the video below, shot by the folks at The Verge, where you’ll also find more juicy details on the device’s specs and inner workings.
Unlike a touchscreen interface, with the Leap, there’s no friction. That sounds trivial, but it isn’t. It’s the difference between attempting to conduct a symphony with a wand and attempting to conduct the same symphony by sketching out what the orchestra should do next via chalk on a blackboard.
Plus, Leap operates in three dimensions rather than two. Forget pinch-to-zoom; imagine “push to scroll,” rotating your flattened hand to control the orientation of an object with a full six degrees of freedom, or using both hands at once to control either end of a bezier surface you’re casually sculpting as part of an object you’ll be sending to your 3D printer.
The future looks bright and exciting.
While kids may enjoy holding their arms out in empty space for hours?? at a time, anybody over the age of 30 can’t do it. I suppose you can rest your elbow on the desk in front of the screen, but that still seems more tiring than simply resting your fingers and, as a result supporting your arm, on a mouse or keyboard. Also, a person’s wrist will soon get tired, twisting and flicking about. Seems like a dumb invention for an aging society.
I like the idea of not having to clean fingerprints off a screen!
Might work for 3D graphics designers, but I don’t see it coming into play for heads down data entry.
Using no touch gestures won’t be a big stretch for a lot of us. Apple has a multi-touch trackpad on its MacBook, and I’ve been using a Magic Trackpad instead of a mouse on my desktop iMac for years.
Gloria, JimK…I think ya’ll are looking at the wrong element here. I think ya’ll are considering the screen as the data entry area….
I am seeing this as what the laser drawn keyboards were meant to be. Instead of having an actual keyboard, you could have a vinyl sticker of a keyboard and just touch type on the desk surface – this could read where you are touching and type the letters on screen, you could have a second read zone for manipulating what is on the screen (web surfing for example), or for mousing around – we have touchpads already, this just removes a bit of hardware that wears out. Desktop surfaces don’t wear out as fast.
Biggest question I have is how can this be integrated with computer gaming? Seems like an odd element, but behind porn, it is a massive user base that drives a fair chunk of computer development. Webpage manipulation covers Porn, the biggest driver.