Wave your hand to communicate with the future

It’s great to see a really exciting technology come to fruition. I was excited enough to pre-order a LEAP motion controller ages ago, so long that I’d almost forgotten about it; but they’ve just announced that they’re actually going to be shipping in May.

What is this beast? It’s a tiny little device that allows you to control your computer with motions in 3D. Like a Kinect, but aimed at precise PC control, and smaller, and cheaper.

The Leap Motion controller senses your individual hand and finger movements so you can interact directly with your computer. Just connect our device and instantly get 8 cubic feet of awesome, intuitive, 3D interaction space.

I’m not sure I’m into writing in air, but the level of precision promised by the controller would make signing an on-screen document practical. Flying through documents in a Minority Report fashion would be nothing. There are lots of great possibilities. All of which I would only be mildly interested in other than the fact the $80 price tag makes it worth having a go at just to see what can be done.

Given how much time we now all spend interacting with touch sensitive screens this, or some variant on it, is probably the future. So much so that it does make me wonder about all that effort we’ve put into teaching the kids to type instead of having beautiful handwriting.