Motion Sensing Control Aimed At PC and Mac

By Ryan Borja

  • Simple to set up
  • To 1/100th millimetre of accuracy
  • Five years in the making

The future of humans interacting with machines using hands or finger gestures may finally be here with the launch of Leap, a motion-sensory device for PC and Mac. Five years in the making, Leap is also said to use a set of tightly packed sensors to enable it to track the movement of a pen or a hand.

This 3-D motion control device, which is only the size of a packet of gum, is also a better alternative than a mouse and more reliable to use than a keyboard.

Leap has a high sensitivity to track individual fingertips to give 200 times more accuracy than any other existing device like touchscreens and also claims to give touch accuracy of 1/100th of a millimetre to allow simple-to-complex gestures from pinch-to-zoom to manipulating 3D-rendred objects.

Setting up is also said to be easy. Users plug the device into a USB port, load the software, calibrate the system by waving the hands, and it will start working.

The unit is claimed to be capable of identifying several natural gestures like flicking of the wrist, wiggling of a finger, and tapping of hands.

Complicated tasks on a PC like drawing or moulding shapes can be simplified by Leap’s gesture-based technology.