Would you look at that? Seems Leap Motion’s eagerly awaited motion controller has started shipping a few days early — well, a few days before its delayed July 22nd date, but we’ll take it. We’ve received a couple of confirmations from future Leapers that their devices are on the way. Until they actually arrive, however, why not take a look at some of the apps developers have been working on for the system?
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Filed under: Peripherals
The motion-controlled, hover-hands future isn’t quite here yet, but we’ve used a Leap Motion and we can tell you first hand that it’s damned awesome
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Leap Motion’s gesture-tracking devices won’t ship until July 22nd, but the company is opening up its SDK and developer portal to the public.
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Leap Motion was showing off its still unreleased gesture motion controller for computers at Google I/O 2013. The demo unit allowed you to use the controller to navigate Google Earth, and the functionality felt ready for prime time to me, as this was the first time I’d ever used the Leap Motion. The controls seemed intuitive, and within a few minutes I was flying around the globe pretty handily, though I did have some trouble finding San Francisco.
I asked about Leap Motion’s recent announcement that it would delay launch in order to further beta test Leap, and as you can see in the video the company is keen to note that the hardware is solid, but there’s a need for more testing around the consumer experience. Leap seems very confident they can deliver by their new anticipated ship date of late July, however.
The tech is impressive regardless of whether it hits a little later than anticipated, but it’ll be interesting to see if the extended beta has an effect on how it’s eventually received by consumers.
Leap Motion has just announced that its 3D gesture controller hardware ship date will be delayed, from May 13 for pre-orders and May 19 for general retail availability to July 27. The delay was caused by a need for more testing from the Leap Motion beta testing community, and an expansion of that group with additional members, according to Leap Motion CEO Michael Buckwald, who held a press conference today to discuss the missed dates.
This is not good new for a company that has spent a lot of time promoting its product and securing high-level partnerships (with Asus, HP and Best Buy) up until now. The hype that Leap Motion has been able to build only means that users will be more disappointed by any delays in its launch window, and the effect on public perception is certainly one the hardware startup would like to have avoided. Still, some 12,000 developers have received units and already used them to do impressive things, so Leap Motion is hardly in danger of being branded ‘vaporware’ as of yet.
Leap Motion says it wants to make sure that the product they deliver is the best they can offer, and says that there is “nothing catastrophically wrong” with the hardware as of yet. The company believes that it could have shipped by the original date if it had really pushed things, but wanted to make sure that things were ready for prime time. The new July 22 ship date is firmly set, according to Buckwald, and this is “the first and only delay there will be.”
When asked if there was a specific cause, Buckwald said it’s more about beta testing everything in general, but that there will definitely be a focus on getting more input on how customers interact with the product. In general, it sounds like there’s some concern about making sure that user experience is pleasant among not only Leap Motion’s more technical users, but also the general public, too. Buckwald says it has addressed most of the technical issues around gesture tracking, and now the emphasis is squarely on usability testing, and those who are already seeded with early hardware will essentially act more as consumer testers.
“If you’d asked me a year ago what was the biggest challenge, I’d have said it would be the hardware side,” Buckwald said, but went on to explain that the software aspect is now what’s holding things up, and the part that needs more refinement. 600,000 units are in inventory in warehouses ready to ship, he said, but those won’t be going out until the software issues are ironed out. When asked about how that affects their funding situation, he explained that the $45 million it has raised so far was designed to help it field unexpected hiccups in the process, and it continues to help with that.
A small number of additional users will be invited to the beta test pool beginning in June, Buckwald explained, but Leap Motion will be reaching out to users specifically to choose those, based on their desire for a more varied beta pool. In other words, you probably can’t petition for early access. The full letter Leap Motion is sending out to pre-order customers follows:
Release Date Update
I wanted to reach out to update you on the status of our ship date. After a lot of consideration, we’ve decided to push back the date and will now be shipping units to pre-order customers on July 22nd.
This is not a decision we take lightly. There are hundreds of thousands of people in over 150 countries who have pre-ordered Leap devices, some as long as a year ago. These people are part of our community and there is nothing more important to us than getting them devices as quickly as possible.
We’ve made a lot of progress. When we first started taking orders back in May we were twelve (very tired) people in a basement. Now we are eighty (although still tired and possibly still in a basement). We’ve manufactured over six hundred thousand devices and delivered twelve thousand Leaps to amazing developers who are building applications that let people do things that just wouldn’t have been possible before. These developers have given us great feedback that we’ve used to make huge improvements to the stability and polish of the product. We’re really proud of Leap as both a company and a product.
The reality is we very likely could have hit the original ship date. But it wouldn’t have left time for comprehensive testing. This will come in the form of a beta test that will start in June. We will give the 12k developers who currently have Leap devices access to the feature complete product including OS interaction (today developers only have access to the SDK). We will also invite some people who are not developers to join the beta test.
Ultimately, the only way we felt 100% confident we could deliver a truly magical product that would do justice to this new form of interaction, was to push the date so we would have more time for a larger, more diverse beta test.
I really appreciate your patience. I know it’s been a long wait. Everyone that works at Leap is working tirelessly to make sure that wait is worth it. Thanks so much for your help and support.
David and I will be participating in an open video Q&A using Google Hangout tomorrow. We’ll send along more specific information on that shortly. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact our support team atsupport@leapmotion.com or my personal email (buckwald@leapmotion.com). As always, we will not charge pre-order customer’s credit cards until the devices have actually shipped.
Thanks again. Michael Buckwald
Leap has been accepting pre-orders for its motion controller for some time now, and has been promising a ship date of May 13th since February, but there’s now been a slight change of plans. The company has confirmed that it’s delaying those shipments until July 22nd. In a letter sent to pre-order customers (included after the break), Leap CEO Michael Buckwald explains that the company has already manufactured over six hundred thousand devices and delivered twelve thousand to developers, and says “the reality is we very likely could have hit the original ship date.” But, he adds, “it wouldn’t have left time for comprehensive testing.”
That’s now set to begin in the form of a beta test that will start in June, which will see developers who’ve already received a unit get a feature complete product, and other non-developers invited to join as well. According to Buckwald, that expanded beta test is “the only way we felt 100% confident we could deliver a truly magical product that would do justice to this new form of interaction.” He’ll be participating in an open Google Hangout tomorrow to discuss the move further — specific details on it are promised to be coming soon.
Filed under: Peripherals
Recently, we were talking about how Leap Motion and HP worked together in order to integrate Leap Motion’s technology in its upcoming devices. Doing their bit to honor Earth Day, both Google and Leap Motion have just announced (and it is not even April Fool’s!) that there is an update to Google Earth available today, where this update would be able to detect input from the Leap Motion Controller. Basically, you are now able to “reach in” and “grab” the world within your display using Leap Motion, not to mention flying around at will.
Of course, this particular freedom to fly around does come with a catch. The only folks who will be able to make use of hand gestures to fly around Google Earth on Earth Day will be limited to approximately 10,000 or so members of Leap Motion’s developer program. As for the rest of the world, they will just have to be patient and wait until May as the pre-orders will ship then, retailing for $79.99 a pop. Any takers for this collaboration between Google Earth and Leap Motion?
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Intel Update For USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Increase Power Output As Well, New Nexus 7 Tablet Google I/O Release Rumored, 
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Leap Motion’s gesture-based controller launch is less than a month away, but so far we’ve heard relatively little about app support, besides the fact that the company is working hard on filling out its Airspace app store. Now, Leap Motion and Google are announcing support for Google Earth for Leap Motion tech, which will be built-in to the desktop Google Earth app for Windows, Mac and Linux as of version 7.1 (out today).
That’s a good initial user pool for Leap Motion, since Google Earth has been downloaded by over 1 billion people according to Google’s stats. The endorsement by Google is crucial because of the company’s stature, and the fact that it builds a whole lot of software, including the Chrome browser, and because it gives potential Leap Motion owners a very tangible, natural and commonplace app to test out Leap Motion’s utility with.
And we won’t have to wait until mid-May to find out how effective it is – 10,000 developers arleady have access to Leap Motion Controller hardware as it is. Leap motion is looking for devs to try it out and submit their own YouTube videos of the experience, by flagging the posts with #LeapInto. Those will go into a playlist the company will share to show off its tech.
Leap Motion continues to rack up the pre-launch hits, with major retail and OEM partnerships. The HP arrangement that will see its 3D gesture tech built-in to future laptops and other devices in particular is huge news. But all that hype means it will face high expectations at launch, and Google endorsement drives those expectations even higher.
When you have two names – Leap Motion as well as computer manufacturer HP team up, you know for sure that you are in for quite an adventure, and this assumption has proven right yet again. This particular deal between both companies is said to have been in development for over a year already, and it marks a significant step in delivering touch-free, intuitive computing to the masses. In a nutshell, this particular agreement will see the Leap Motion Controller come bundled with select HP personal computers later this summer, and will also eventually come to encompass a range of unique HP devices that are embedded with Leap Motion’s technology, although the folks over at HP are keeping mum about such HP devices at the moment.
Not only that, HP’s software, including Airspace which is their app store, will be pre-loaded on Leap Motion-integrated HP devices. The reason behind this move is to offer a tremendous opportunity for the developer community in order to make a mark by garnering an even larger global audience of users. Do bear in mind that this embedding deal is different from the one that Leap Motion announced with Asus, as that was a bundling deal in the past, and it signifies another significant endorsement of Leap Motion’s technology.
What Leap Motion wants to do is this – to deliver 3D motion-control technology to the world without burning a hole in your wallet, and to do so as long as there is a computer in the vicinity, which is why they decided to form a collaboration with the folks over at HP to maximize their chances of fulfilling such a vision.
Leap Motion co-founder and CEO Michael Buckwald, said, “Our focus at Leap Motion is to fundamentally improve how people interact with their devices, and offer as many ways as possible to achieve that vision. The possibilities for innovation are incredible, when you think about what will come from this collaboration between two respected global leaders in their fields – HP, the world’s largest technology company and Leap Motion, creator of the world’s most powerful 3-D motion-control technology.”
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[ Leap Motion and HP come together for embedded 3D motion-control technology copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
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