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Leap Motion video demonstrates Windows 8 usage

by Mark Tyson on 21 May 2013, 10:58

Tags: Windows 8, PC

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Leap Motion has published a new blog post and associated video showing its highly anticipated motion controller working with Windows 8. The firm says it is “refining” this essential feature ready for the 22nd July launch (when pre-order customer units will ship).

The video shows a Leap Motion controller user selecting an app from the Windows 8 MUI then smoothly navigating through the information presented, scrolling, zooming, selecting content with easy smooth movements. Normal Windows 8 gestures such as closing an app by dragging down from the title bar work nicely too, as you might expect.

Leap Motion promises that OS-level functionality will work “from the second you plug in” without you having to install extra software or drivers. “With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that’s possible with multi-touch inputs — without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements,” the company said on its blog. Furthermore we are informed Mac OS X fans are going to get a demo video shortly, showing Leap Motion hardware working on their OS of choice.

While this video concentrates on OS interactions and is the first to do so Leap Motion are also beavering away working on Airspace, its special motion controller enhanced app store/apps. Apps focussed upon “games, music, art, design, productivity, education, and more” are promised. The possibilities for Leap in content creation apps are very attractive, Leap has already highlighted some music creation apps and hopefully there will be some really accessible 3D modelling applications arriving. Leap say this app store will “make sure the Leap Motion experience is what we’ve planned all along: to be the most intuitive, natural, and magical way to interact with your computer and to transform how the world interacts with technology.”

Leap Motion won’t be confined to PCs. VentureBeat talked to Leap Motion’s COO Andy Miller a couple of weeks ago, who revealed “We’re looking to embed our tech into watches, and smartphones, and glasses, and everything”. So the hardware partnerships aren’t going to stop with ASUS and HP.

HEXUS Forums :: 15 Comments

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Posted by wyte_w0lf - Tue 21 May 2013 11:31
Kinda curious if this will work well, if at all, on a multi-monitor setup. Either way, still interested.
Posted by DeludedGuy - Tue 21 May 2013 11:37
As cool as it is, the biggest flaw is that your arms will tire fairly quickly, I haven't seen anyone rest there arms and use this thing…its cool but it's going to flop.
Posted by jimbouk - Tue 21 May 2013 11:42
If only there was some device that tracked the relative movement of your hand without having to keep your arm in the air. Say, you could even have this new thing resting on your desk. And when you move your fingers it could register it as a ‘click’ and do things. I think I'm on to something!
Posted by crossy - Tue 21 May 2013 11:43
wyte_w0lf
Kinda curious if this will work well, if at all, on a multi-monitor setup. Either way, still interested.
According to this Twitter post the answer is “yes”. Although there's some (looney?) talking about using a pair of LM's to drive his dual quad monitor setup - one for each quad.

I watched that video and it's just confirmed what I thought before - that a Win8+LM combo is definitely going to be a brilliant way to use MUI. Certainly been impressed with the (very similar) UI on XBox once Kinect is added into the equation.

Also means that Asus and HP made a very sensible decision to license LM's tech!
DeludedGuy
As cool as it is, the biggest flaw is that your arms will tire fairly quickly, I haven't seen anyone rest there arms and use this thing…its cool but it's going to flop.
I've seen a video (which I can't lay my hands on at the moment) where the user had his elbow resting on a desk and was driving his controller that way. When I'm using the Kinect I don't tend to sit there like a scarecrow - instead it's a case of only raising the “controller” (your hands/arms) when you need to give a command/do-an-interaction. The rest of the time you can let it/them rest easy. And no, I don't agree that this is a flop - there's too much enthusiasm for that to be the case (oh, and it also supports Ubuntu Linux as well as Mac OS X)
Posted by SciFi - Tue 21 May 2013 11:55
Can't Wait for my pre-order to arrive :-)

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