The Leap Motion Controller is probably one of the coolest, and most innovative gadgets to hit stores in quite some time. This, small, portable, and well-built device, will allow you to literally turn any screen into a touchscreen, using motion sensors. The device will be sold at your local Best Buy on May 19th, and will cost $80, while the pre-order price is set at only $70.
As of right now, the device is already a big hit, with pre-orders supposedly in the hundreds of thousands. Currently people who are running on a Windows 7 or 8 machine, or are running Mac OSX versions 10.7, or 10.8, will have no problems running the device, as it comes with nice built-in support for these operating systems.
It also features its very own app store, called AirSpace. AirSpace will offer various application that will use the device in some way shape or form, to make the users life easier. Some of the partners who have already been working with AirSpace, have already been announced, such as The Weather Channel, AutoDesk, Disney games, Double Fine, ZeptoLabs, and others. It’s interesting to see games already being made for the device… one thing it’s likely to revolutionize more than anything is gaming. Who knows how many games will start being produced with this new gadget in mind.
Michael Zagorsek, the Vice President of Marketing over at Leap Motion, said in a fairly recent interview: “We’ve talked about our app store as a key way to distribute software that our developers are creating.”. He went on to say: “We’re not going into it too much right now, because we didn’t want to overshadow the launch date news, but we realize that we really need to shift the narrative of the company more and more to the apps that we’re working to create.”.
The app store of course, is probably the most important thing that this new device needs to get started, and stay strong, because let’s face it, without developers taking time to develop to a dedicated app store, this device becomes just that neat little toy you bought, played with, because it had a few “cool, neat features”, that you then completely forgot about two weeks later.
Things are looking pretty good though, considering some early demos showing off the devices smooth interaction with the computers, which has created a considerable amount of buzz. So, all they have to do at this point, is just not slow down, and keep the momentum going at full-throttle, and they should do well. We’ll have to see how this device can hold up over the long haul, but I, for one, am very excited to see what comes next.