ASUS Using World's Most Accurate 3-D Motion-Control Technology

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Leap Motion, the motion-control software and hardware company changing the future of human/computer interaction, today announced one of its first global OEM partnerships. ASUS, a leading innovator in personal computing products, will bundle the revolutionary Leap Motion controller with select new computers. In an industry first, ASUS will also bundle the world's most accurate 3-D motion-control technology into new high-end notebooks and premium All-in-One (AiO) PCs later this year.

Leap Motion's incredible speed and precision are helping fuel its momentum and leadership in the industry. Leap Motion's technology can track movements to 1/100th millimeter-smaller than the tip of a pin-with no visible lag time. The Leap Motion controller has a 150-degree field of view, and tracks individual hands and all 10 fingers at 290 frames per second.
 
In for pre-order, will be fun to play with. And says you can return it within the first 60 days for a full refund, so I thought it was worth a shot.
 
The Leap is definitely going to be a game-changer, assuming all their past claims have been accurate, and assuming software support gets there. Things like the Kinect have their uses, but having precise low-latency tracking for hands and fingers opens the door for quite a lot of more practical things.
 
jpm100 said:
Their demo has always been in a controlled environment. I'll remain skeptical until its covered by a frew people in a more uncontrolled setting.
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Same, but I've been excited for this since it was mentioned. Hope it turns out, the kinect is already awesome and this should bring in some nice competition.
 
This video is from May... NOTHING new here. I remember is being linked on the news section before too.
 
I wonder how well star wars kinect will play on it.....
cause I remember that demo looking that good and that game was rancid....
 
I still fail to see the practical use of something like this versus a mouse. Zoom in? Scroll. Move around? Move the mouse around. Sure the technology is cool, but why would someone WANT to use this? I just don't get it...maybe I'm just old school (I am only 26 though...) but until mind control comes around I've never seen any type of interface control that is truly better than a mouse.

There is a reason the mouse has been the dominating input tech for the past 20-30 years. It just works.
 
You're thinking two-dimensionally, which is coincidentally the plane on which a mouse operates. This works three-dimensionally.
 
JoeUser said:
I still fail to see the practical use of something like this versus a mouse. Zoom in? Scroll. Move around? Move the mouse around. Sure the technology is cool, but why would someone WANT to use this? I just don't get it...maybe I'm just old school (I am only 26 though...) but until mind control comes around I've never seen any type of interface control that is truly better than a mouse.

There is a reason the mouse has been the dominating input tech for the past 20-30 years. It just works.
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Turning your whole desk into a multitouch surface would be pretty cool, though largely a novelty I guess. I think the practical applications for this are in 3D modeling and such, and the medical community seems interested.

Just because we've had the mouse for 30 years, and "it just works" does not mean we can't come up with better tools.
 
wonderfield said:
You're thinking two-dimensionally, which is coincidentally the plane on which a mouse operates. This works three-dimensionally.
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There have been 3D mice. Probably still being used too. But it's a niche product. This product also appears to have no market at the moment. That may change, but why would i want to have to wave my hands and fingers all over to do what a couple of inches of mouse travel already does?

Kind of like buying an exotic sports car to drive a block to work. Feet or a bicycle work just as well, and are a LOT cheaper.
 
I can see it having more use in the medical field than at home. But I would find this easier to use than a touch screen.
 
spugnor said:
There have been 3D mice. Probably still being used too. But it's a niche product. This product also appears to have no market at the moment. That may change, but why would i want to have to wave my hands and fingers all over to do what a couple of inches of mouse travel already does?

Kind of like buying an exotic sports car to drive a block to work. Feet or a bicycle work just as well, and are a LOT cheaper.
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It's not intended to replace a mouse for every task. I think it is a great presentation and teaching tool.
 
spugnor said:
There have been 3D mice. Probably still being used too. But it's a niche product. This product also appears to have no market at the moment. That may change, but why would i want to have to wave my hands and fingers all over to do what a couple of inches of mouse travel already does?

Kind of like buying an exotic sports car to drive a block to work. Feet or a bicycle work just as well, and are a LOT cheaper.
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First off, if you've watched the demos of this, then you'll know that this is fairly precise and can track very small movements. Secondly, it's not just about the distance traveled. IF this works as advertised (and the feedback from the dev kits that have gone out indicate that it does), then it will simply be a much more intuitive way to work with some sets of data (think CAD models or special effects in movies, etc).
 
How about using it in conjunction with the mouse? Pinch\zoom a photo while selecting a tool in Photoshop for instance.
 
wonderfield said:
You're thinking two-dimensionally, which is coincidentally the plane on which a mouse operates. This works three-dimensionally.
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Not really. I own and use a Novint Falcon, so I am well aware of what TRUE three-dimensional touch and interactivity is. Yes, a mouse is 2D, but it can also be EASILY made to control a 3D environment. Take a CAD program for example (of which I am very familiar with - are you?). Using a simple key press in conjunction with a mouse (whether it is a key on a keyboard or button on a mouse) I can easily interact with a 3D environment. I can zoom, push, pull, rotate on all axis, etc.

Again, this is cool technology, but even for professional artist or modelers I see no USEFUL application that a mouse or pen tablet can't do more easily. Yes this device can do hand writing, but so can my Wacom tablet with better accuracy, pressure sensitivity, and more control due to the buttons on the pen.
 
Awesome, now we can play fruit ninja with increased precision.
 
Has anyone actually heard a release date on the leapmotion? I know they sent out thousands of dev units a few months back, but I haven't heard anything more on it in a while until this Asus thing... which also doesn't mention specific dates.
I know some people don't see the functionality, but for 70 bucks I would be willing to give it a try anyway. Sometimes it would be nice to just lean back a bit in my chair and flick a finger around to navigate a page I am reading or something rather than having to keep a hand on the mouse.
 
Imagine if this tech matures to the point when you can actually use any object as your pointer, rather than mouse, keyboard, joypad, whatever. Waving your hands is the most unimaginative use for it when it comes to desktop, or even couch use. It's not meant for desktop but if they solve latency it could be used for anything, really.

Me, first thing would be to cut the cord of my all diamondback. Hope it detects mouse clicks :)
 
JoeUser said:
Yes, a mouse is 2D, but it can also be EASILY made to control a 3D environment.
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The 'easily' bit is highly debatable. Articulation of three-dimensional objects with a mouse in non-trivial. The fact that you're using multiple input devices simultaneously to achieve the task is pretty indicative of that. Now try to accurately manipulate two different objects simultaneously with that keyboard/mouse configuration. Can you do it?

JoeUser said:
Yes this device can do hand writing, but so can my Wacom tablet with better accuracy, pressure sensitivity, and more control due to the buttons on the pen.
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There will always be devices that may or will probably be better-suited to highly-specific tasks. The following come to mind:

Keyboard (text entry)
Mouse (cursor traversal)
Capacitive touchscreen (direct planar manipulation)
Novint Falcon or similar (multi-axis manipulation)
Wacom tablet (handwriting)
Jog wheel (shuttling)
Hardware faders (multiple audio level manipulation)
Ribbon controller (tonal manipulation)

Given the right software integration, you can take six of those off the table for a fairly large number of users. The keyboard and mouse are probably going to stick around for just about everyone, but assuming you benefit from all of those different pieces of hardware, that's five things off your desk and one less component in your display. For $70. You don't see any value in that?
 
wonderfield said:
The 'easily' bit is highly debatable. Articulation of three-dimensional objects with a mouse in non-trivial. The fact that you're using multiple input devices simultaneously to achieve the task is pretty indicative of that. Now try to accurately manipulate two different objects simultaneously with that keyboard/mouse configuration. Can you do it?
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I would be interested to try some motion control inputs for 3D CAD, though honestly I think I'd still end up going back to a mouse. While I'm sure it will be easier to rotate and view 3D models with motion control inputs, I don't just spend all day rotating 3D models around, I'm building, editing and measuring off them, so having a bunch of nicely arranged mouse-sized icons is a real plus, which you can only really have with mouse-like precision. Maybe for graphic design a motion control input system might be better, for engineering though, I think a mouse is good (or one of the other, "tactile", 3D input devices).

As far as manipulating 3D objects with a mouse, the programs I do that in typically have a "lock view" function which works for what I need, if you want to do them independantly that would be trickier, though that said, even if you can use both hands in 3D I think it'd be akin to trying to juggle to actually manipulate them simultaneously anyway (ie. you'd end up flipping between the two, the same way you do with a mouse, rather than manipulating them simultaneously).
 
This is cool and the price is right. What this needs now is a killer app. Might be fun to play with but, after the novelty wears off, how does this become an indispensable tool? Not being critical. Just trying to find a reason to get one. ;)
 
Looks real comfortable to hang your hands in the air for a few hours in a row. Times change. A few years ago that would have been called torture ;)
 
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