Leap Motion gesture controller release date revealed

 

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By Nicole Kobie

Posted on 28 Feb 2013 at 11:07

The Leap Motion 3D gesture controller will go on sale in May for $80, the developers have announced.

The motion controller will arrive in Best Buy stores in the US on 19 May, while global pre-orders will ship 13 May. The devices will be shipped on a first-come, first-served basis.

The device will allow users to control PCs via natural gestures, such as scrolling a page with the flick of a hand or writing in the air in front of the device.

The controller is similar to Microsoft's Kinect, which has also been used to control PCs. However, Leap Motion claims it can follow "all ten fingers up to 1/100th millimeter at up to 290 frames per second", with the company saying it was "200 times more sensitive than existing motion-control technology".

Applications won't automatically work with the software, but there's a dedicated app store for software optimised for the Leap Motion, such as games, productivity apps and more.

Leap Motion said it "expected" there to be plugins for 3D design software Autodesk and Corel's painting apps, as well as games such as Cut the Rope. "Leap Motion continues to accept submissions to join its developer program and create new uses for the Leap Motion Controller," it added.

It will work with Windows 7 and Windows 8 PCs, and Macs running OS X 10.7 and 10.8 - and Asus has already said it will ship Leap Motion with PCs by the end of this year.

Leap Motion CEO Michael Buckwald said there were now "hundreds of thousands" of developers, business partners and pre-order consumers, but didn't reveal exactly how many orders have been taken.