Augmented World

But the nine startups that pitched at the AXLR8R demo day in San Francisco Friday were proof that there are a lot of niche applications brewing that make better use of Leap Motion’s abilities than gaming or consuming news. It can be a hands-free tool for surgeons or a translation tool for sign language users.

“We always view our role as a platform enabling people, enabling developers to build something that would not have been possible before,” Leap Motion CEO Michael Buckwald said at the event.

The question is whether it can compete with technologies like Google Glass and Meta’s augmented reality glasses, both of which could be used for many of the same applications. However, some of the startups made the case for how Leap Motion can add capabilities to platforms like Oculus Rift that don’t already have motion tracking.

Created as a project for a Leap Motion hackathon, the set-up shows the user interacting with a floating menu of square computer interfaces. Later, the user accesses a calendar app via a floating menu of circular buttons that appears to include options for phone calls, email, chat and video.

The dynamic interface was crafted by a team of Leap Motion software engineers who used the company's Dragonfly prototype sensor (which includes color cameras) and the Oculus Development Kit 2.

"Can you imagine how awesome it would be if at the push of a button you could fly your virtual workspace on top of a mountain or in the middle of a lush forest?" Leap Motion software engineer Raffi Bedikian told Wired, referring to the portability of the interface.

And in addition to being to take such an augmented reality computing interface anywhere, the headset itself would essentially block out the outside world, keeping you focused on a task, but not oblivious to your surroundings.

One of the most stunning demonstrations in the video is when the user opens up an augmented reality video screen, floating in front of a normal computer display, and then begins watching video footage. It truly looks like a view of the future of computing.

Of course, this demonstration is just an experiment, and there are no announced plans to bring this to market. But considering how useful this could be to any number of professionals who rely on using computers for long stretches of time, Leap Motion might want to consider making this incredible experiment a commercial product.

Metti Leap Motion insieme ad Oculus Rift e il risultato sarà spettacolare, ed è proprio questo ciò che hanno fatto gli sviluppatori del noto sensore di movimento. Il nuovo "VR Developer Mount" infatti fonde questi due moderni dispositivi e dà all'utente un'esperienza del tutto nuova e molto promettente, tanto per i videogiochi quanto per l'interazione Uomo-Macchina in generale.

Leap Motion spera che il nuovo sensore Dragonfly finisca per diventare parte integranti di prodotti VR (Virtual Reality) come l'Oculus Rift, e l'idea sembra davvero convincente. Il video che Leap Motion ha creato mostra infatti come le mani dell'utente siano riprodotte con precisione in VR, e come i movimenti siano precisi e fedeli.

L'idea è che un in un futuro non troppo remoto il sensore si potrà combinare alla Realtà Virtuale creata dal software – che si tratti di videogioco o altro – con cui noi potremo interagire in un modo molto più versatile e variegato rispetto a oggi.

Un'innovazione molto interessante, per cui la multinazionale statunitense ha preparato anche una serie di applicazioni ad hoc, da scaricare nell'app store dedicato, l'Airspace, per sfruttare al meglio il Leap Motion. Per quanto riguarda il resto della dotazione, L'HP Envy 17 ha un display IPS da 17 pollici con risoluzione da 1600 x 900 pixel, il processore e a scelta Intel Core i5 o Core i7 di quarta generazione con 8 GB di RAM, beats Audio con 4 altoparlanti e 2 subwoofeer e 4 porte USB.