GigaOM » LEap Motion

Forget touch screens or voice recognition, Thalmic Labs’ UI uses muscle movements

Stacey Higginbotham — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 21:21:20 +0000

The more places we add computing, the more tired keyboards, mice and even touchcreens look as interfaces, which is why the latest video from Thalmic Labs, showing off its MYO arm band is so cool. The MYO armband uses muscle movements to figure out what gesture the wearer is making, and then relays that back to software. The video shows people playing Tetris by waving their hands and playing with a Sphero waving their arms.

The startup, founded last year and based in Waterloo, Ontario, reminds me of the Leap Motion guys, who are building a gesture-interface for PCs and laptops using sensors. Both are taking the relatively “flat” methods of motion-based input, such as touch or mice, and making them 3D. Now you can move not just left and right, but also above and below a plane.

So far, the MYO bracelets will ship at the end of the year for the first 25,000 people who pre-ordered the armbands, with another batch coming in 2014. They cost $149, which is pretty compelling if even a few decent apps are available. Games are a good entry point for this type of gesture-based control with the MYO sold as an accessory of sorts.

But if the company makes is SDK available, I can imagine it as a controller for a variety of things, including the connected home. Imagine wearing one of these armbands and using gestures to control your stereo from across the room or even as a way to lock the doors with a motion as you leave the house. Of course, that assumes a device that you’d wear constantly, which then gets us into the thorny UI issue of how to tell the device when you want it to pay attention and take action based on a motion, as opposed to when you are just scratching your nose or waving hello to a neighbor.

For a taste of the device and possibilities, check out the video below:

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Leap Motion gets its gesture control integrated with select HP PCs

Stacey Higginbotham — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:45:34 +0000

Leap Motion, the company making extremely accurate gesture detection hardware, has signed a deal to bundle and then integrate its motion-based controller into select HP products. This is a big win for Leap, which already has a deal with ASUS that will bundle the Leap Motion device in with its all in one computers as well as select ASUS notebooks this year.

Bundling is good, but integration is always better in the consumer world, since most consumers may not have any idea that they want gesture-based controls or even why. Leap’s system works like a Kinect with an exterior piece of hardware attached to the computer that detects hand motions with a high degree of accuracy — within 1/100th of a millimeter. As for why someone might want this on their machine, it’s an enabler for new types of computing experiences.

When the company raised an additional $30 million earlier this year, I wrote how excited I was at the potential for gesture-controls to change how we think of the PC by enabling new applications like molding clay, manipulating spreadsheets in 3-D or playing an instrument. From the post:

That’s a nice win in the computing space, but the real question for me is can a new UI change how we interact with computers, and perhaps help keep the PC relevant? David Holz, the a co-founder and CTO of Leap told me that he helped invent the product because he wanted to do things on his computer, like play an instrument or make a model, that were made far too complicated by the existing programs limited by drop down menus necessitated by having a keyboard or mouse interface.

This deal with HP may help drive the adoption of more of those Leap-specific applications by helping deliver a larger audience for developers. Already Leap has sent out 12,000 units for free to developers to prime the pump for new applications, but now it needs to give those programmers an audience. As is always the case with a new user interface platform, it could be the most awesome experience since the touch screen, but if people don’t use it, the apps won’t arrive.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

GigaOM Research highs and lows from CES 2013

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:01:14 +0000

Every January CES sets the stage for the next year in tech, showing off all the latest in consumer electronics as well as smart-home technology, digital health, connected cars, virtual reality, and mobile platforms. Given how CES is now a barometer for such a wide array of technology segments, we at GigaOM Research decided to ask our readers which way the tech winds will blow over the next year based on what they saw in Las Vegas. Our readers responded with the technologies they thought were the most disruptive and least disruptive, as well as the companies they were most impressed with, from categories as diverse as TV technology, smart home, connected car, internet of things, virtual or augmented reality, 3D printing, interfaces, digital health, mobility, and robotics.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

Leap Motion gets $30M to change how you interact with computers

Stacey Higginbotham — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 13:00:51 +0000

There’s a school of thought that says that the language you learn shapes how you think. If that’s the case, then the keyboard and mouse have shaped the way we think of content creation and the limits of computers. But Leap Motion, the San Francisco-based startup, wants to change that, much in the way that touch has changed the way we interact with — and the apps we use — on our mobile phones.

The company, which was founded in 2010 has built a peripheral device that you plug into a computer or laptop that can enable a gesture-based user interface that incorporates all directions — not just a flat perspective. Some have described it as a Kinect for computers. The device has a 150-degree field of view and can accurately track the movements of all 10 fingers down to the 1/100th of a millimeter, which is apparently pretty darn impressive according to reviewers.

And with a $30 million second round of funding, Leap plans to manufacture its peripheral device at scale. The funding round, led by Founders Fund with previous investor Highland Capital Partners participating, follows a $14.5 million Series A round. It will also support today’s second piece of news — namely that ASUS will bundle the Leap Motion device in with its all in one computers as well as select notebooks this year.

That’s a nice win in the computing space, but the real question for me is can a new UI change how we interact with computers, and perhaps help keep the PC relevant? David Holz, the a co-founder and CTO of Leap told me that he helped invent the product because he wanted to do things on his computer, like play an instrument or make a model, that were made far too complicated by the existing programs limited by drop down menus necessitated by having a keyboard or mouse interface.

But beyond a new UI that makes existing applications a bit more user-friendly, the company’s CEO and Co-founder Michael Buckwald also want to promote the creation of new apps that take advantage of the horsepower today’s computers have. He says most people don’t use their computers fully , but with a new interface editing a video or even CAD design becomes more accessible to novices.

I’m excited by the idea that people can use the gesture-based UI to build increasingly rich data analysis programs. Imagine taking the spreadsheet and adding more dimensions to it. You could relate different data sets to each other more easily and perhaps let the computer perform correlation analysis quickly by dragging information from location to another on multiple axes.

Today with more than 12,000 developers working with the product and its software development kit, Leap is hoping that new applications in gaming (play angry birds where you mime sling shotting the birds instead of just touching it), navigation of documents (doctors or home cooks could navigate a medical file or a recipe without worrying about messy hands) and even video and image editing help make its controller the new mouse. And if, in doing that, it can get people excited about their PCs and the horsepower available to them, then companies beyond Leap will benefit.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.