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Leap: A new gesture based interface for devices

leapmotion.com

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Re: Leap: A new gesture based interface for devices

#171

Post by muraiki »

bakedbeing wrote: post #130
danblick wrote: post #29

Not to be cynical, but this reminds me a little of Alan Kay's comment: """ By the way, Sketchpad was the first system where it was discovered that the light pen was a very bad input device. The blood runs out of your hand in about 20 seconds, and leaves it numb. And in spite of that it’s been re-invented at least 90 times in the last 25 years. """ from http://archive.org/details/AlanKeyD1987 around 7:10

Painters are able to operate a brush for full working days in the studio without the elbow support that a desk supplies here. It seems if the benefit is great enough people can work up the supporting muscles through repetition.

In fact, if a painter (or user of Leap) were to continually rest their elbow on some support, they could compress the ulnar nerve and cause cubital tunnel syndrome. If you've ever hit your "funny bone," that's the ulnar nerve.

Heck, consider how light a painter's brush is in comparison to a fencer's epee (which only weighs about 1 lb at the most, but still, try holding one for an hour without having any experience!)

Re: Leap: A new gesture based interface for devices

#172

Post by muraiki »

Peteris wrote: post #65
weego wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really won't. Have you any idea how tiring waving your arms around like that would be all day? There are so many use cases where it doesn't even work that would require a complete rethink of how anything is presented on in internet. For example how about the HN comments where it's pasted as code and it scrolls horizontally. Target that and scroll it with that system. As soon as you have a single use case where a m…

Agree that it can't provide the precision we need for arbitrary complex actions. Disagree about the physiological concern. Provided your elbows are resting on the table, it would be easy to get used to. Humans would adapt and it would be healthier than our current much talked about static postures.

Until the compression of the ulnar nerve results in cubital tunnel syndrome, that is... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulnar_nerve_entrapment

Re: Leap: A new gesture based interface for devices

#175

Post by bbrtyth »

rogerbinns wrote: post #104
Sidnicious wrote: post #55

I’d love to get one of these and play with it. Will the SDK and spec for talking to it be freely available after the initial batch of preorders and free dev kits? As a counterexample, Emoviv gave a TED talk a while ago showing off a headset that lets you control your computer with your mind. When you visit their website you discover that you can only develop with a $500 “developer edition” headset that comes with a s…

Contrast with Android where every device is a developer device - one tickbox in the settings is all that is required. No accounts, registration, handing over money, authorizing devices etc (yes I'm looking at you Apple).

Every Andriod device, even the ones locked down by the carriers? I find that statement suspect.

Re: Leap: A new gesture based interface for devices

#176

Post by blahedo »

ChrisFornof wrote: post #103
mattmanser wrote: post #16

Already a lot of negativity here... To me this looks amazing and although LEAP seem to be pushing for you to get rid of your mouse/keyboard, personally I think this is probably best as an addition to it. Imagine if you had one of these built into the keyboard. You're typing an email need to add a location switch over to google maps, hands off keyboard as you manipulate it around to get a decent resolution, 'tap' the…

as a side note. Consider how many positions you can put your fingers into. Now both hands? Now imagine if each position was mapped to a different shortcut... How many unique positions could you map? (compare to keyboard).

The problem is one of digital vs analogue, and ballistic vs servo. On a keyboard, you either press or do not press a key, and assuming that your finger is aimed somewhere in the right box, you need no visual feedback to see where it is and which thing you're touching. You also get the tactile feedback of "yes I hit the key", "I hit the key but it was at the edge, better recalibrate", etc.

So while there are a basically continuous range of positions you can put your fingers into (and with fifty or so degrees of freedom), the differences between many similar positions are subtle and require feedback for you to see which of them you're in---looping in your visual system and slowing down the interaction considerably. Which is what you want for certain sorts of continuous-ish interactions, and not at all what you want for certain sorts of digital-ish interactions.

All of which is to say, this sounds suuuuuper cool, but it's not going to replace the keyboard.

Re: Leap: A new gesture based interface for devices

#177

Post by pm90 »

bgalbraith wrote: post #127
iandanforth wrote: post #92

I'm sad the word 'robot' hasn't appeared in this thread yet. Let's correct that. Visual slam is great for medium distances, but pointclouds aren't really that dense and are slow to update. Also the lidar to make the point clouds is stupid expensive. Add one of these guys onto your robot and you've got a really cool set of 'wiskers.' Short range, highly sensitive, super fast update. I'd love to put several of these on…

I work on adaptive mobile robots as part of my research, and I'd be very interested to see how the LEAP compares to the Kinect in this area. I submitted a developer kit request, so maybe I'll get to find out. Also, from the Ars Technica post on LEAP: "The company says the breakthrough in resolution comes not from the hardware, which consists of relatively standard parts, but from what CTO David Holz calls 'a number o…

I would wait for the time they actually make the demo before getting too excited...

Re: Leap: A new gesture based interface for devices

#178

Post by Gregorein »

huhtenberg wrote: post #82
EzGraphs wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about writing in the large - I am thinking big movements, like when writing on a marker board?

Still need to lift the marker to separate the words. And to touch it back rather precisely so not to have the next word to be an inch below the first one.

ain't feedback a relic of all 'press-double-hard-to-be-sure' buttons? With handwriting recognition it shouldn't be that hard. also, http://madebymany.com/blog/wizards-and-haptic-gestures

Re: Leap: A new gesture based interface for devices

#179

Post by pilgrim689 »

CubicleNinjas wrote: post #155
pilgrim689 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is very uncomfortable and decreases the usefulness for most applications" You are forgetting that "most applications" are designed for a mouse and keyboard. A more useful critique would be to analyze the type of applications that can be built with LEAP in mind.

Why would "a more useful critique" be looking at pro-LEAP applications? Is it because this what you want to hear? LEAP is a bad idea, not bad due to software, bad due to the constraints of human beings. You're literally arguing a logical fallacy by the way: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Negative_proof

You don't understand my point. I was picking at how you claimed that X was bad because it can't be used for applications designed for Y.

I also doubt your understanding of "negative proof"... But that's off-topic

Re: Leap: A new gesture based interface for devices

#180

Post by rogerbinns »

bbrtyth wrote: post #175
rogerbinns wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrast with Android where every device is a developer device - one tickbox in the settings is all that is required. No accounts, registration, handing over money, authorizing devices etc (yes I'm looking at you Apple).

Every Andriod device, even the ones locked down by the carriers? I find that statement suspect.

Yes, even the ones AT&T locked. Look in settings for a developer/development submenu on any device.
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