Motion controllers were supposed to be a big deal for gaming. Then we actually played them for an extended period of time. Let’s just say, that right now, we are in the dark ages of an emerging technology.

Welcome to the light.

The hands-free motion controller was introduced by Nintendo, with the Wii, then improved upon with the Microsoft Kinect and Playstation Move. But the Leap Motion takes motion gestures to a whole new level. Users now have the ability to control with their fingers, or the tip of a pen, at an accuracy of 1 millimeter.

Instead of a broad arm gesture telling the device what to do, you know can see the smallest movement being interpreted on the screen. The company that develops it says that it is 200 times more sensitive than anything on the market today. Part of this may be due to the small-in-comparison space that the Leap “inhabits”.

The Leap creates a three-dimensional interaction space” of four cubic feet. Not as much as it’s gaming counterparts, but more than enough to interact with your desktop in some interesting ways. According to the company, the sentors are more responsive than a touch screen or a mouse.

Right now, you can sign up to become a developer, as CEO Michael Buckwald explains. “We want to create as vibrant a developer ecosystem as possible, and we’re reaching out to developers in all sorts of.” I would think that this would be a developers dream. There are so many interesting possibilities to explore with the Leap.

“We believe that ultimately, the sheer number of use cases for this technology are so great that the value can only be realized by making it open,” Buckwald said. “So think what would have happened if the mouse had been initially been released as a closed technology. The impact would have been a tiny, tiny percentage of what the impact was because it was an open system that anyone could develop for.”

Leap has received over a thousand requests from developers, but they are expecting that number to grow exponentially now that it is getting some major news coverage. Their plan is to sift through the applicants in the next few months, starting off with developers in the fields of Medicine , gaming, engineering, science, research, and education.”

They are expected to cost $70.

[via: Gizmodo]