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Leap Motion : A big leap?

Leap Motions tiny gesture controller will be available exclusively at Best Buy

What? How?

I had applied for the leap motion developer program couple of months back and was one of the lucky ones selected to receive the device. The device was mailed via fed-ex and came in a black box with just leap motion written on it. I smell apple-style there.

The device was quite smaller than i had anticipated, about the size of a pack of gums and it is very light of-course. It contains IR cameras that tracks fingers at a very high accuracy (1/100th of a mm).

I was bought by the teaser video the day i saw it. If you have not seen it yet, i suggest you have a look at it first (embedded below). That would surely get you pumped up about the leap motion controller and the power it brings with itself.

Device Experience

The device is actually very good and precise. It lacks applications for now, and i guess that is why we have these devices shipped to us “to write some awesome apps”.

So, what can i do with it right away? Well, to be frank, lots of apps are being developed. The visualizer that comes with the SDK is really nice to get a feel of the device and its precision. Once again, if you have not seen the video for the visualizer, please have a look :) (embedded below)

Developers

When it comes to development, the SDK is pretty cool as it has API’s for development in C++, C#, Obj.C, Java, Python aaannd (drum roll) JavaScript. Yes, it has a WebSockets server that you can connect to and do a lot of stuff. I’ve seen some demos where developers used the $1 library to give a feel of gestures. The SDK didn’t have gesture recognition till now, but i hear the new one has some gesture awesomeness, yet to look into that. Me being a believer in “the web is the platform” makes me feel good that we can develop Leap applications using JavaScript. No, need to go through learning a whole new technology. That is a win, for sure.

What Next?

The device will be out by May (i think). It will be different and have a better experience compared to the developer kit. I have had some ideas in mind and will start working on it in a week or so. Keep checking for updates :)