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VR pioneer Leap Motion reportedly sells to UltraHaptics for $30 million
VR/AR startup Leap Motion has been sold to a rival business named UltraHaptics, according to the Wall Street Journal. The price for the company was reportedly around $30 million -- it was said to be valued at ten times as much in 2013.
Leap Motion shows off AR headset with rousing game of ping pong
If you wanted to demonstrate Leap Motion's low-cost augmented reality headset, how would you do it? Create a flashy, action-packed showcase? Leap Motion has a different idea: an invigorating game of ping pong. The company has crafted a demo that combines the Project North Star headgear with paddle controllers to pit the wearer against an AI opponent at a real ping pong table. It's not mind boggling by any stretch, but it's a good example of a fast, intuitive AR experience that depends on high accuracy. You can juggle the ball and serve it as naturally as you would if it were real. And importantly, there are behind-the-scenes developments that could influence AR going forward.
Leap Motion crafts a reference design for cheap AR headsets
Leap Motion is a company most famous for building a gesture-recognition doodad for PCs that wound up integrated into keyboards. Since then, however, it has built ever-smarter sensors that can bring hand gestures to VR without the use of dedicated controllers. Now, the outfit is taking its biggest ever, er, jump by announcing Project North Star, a proposed augmented reality headset it plans to open-source next week.
Leap Motion will bring your hands into mobile VR
Leap Motion has been working on making your interactions in VR as realistic as possible, but it's only been available to desktop or console systems. Now, the company has expanded its scope to mobile devices with its new Mobile Platform, designed for "untethered, battery-powered virtual and augmented reality devices." It has built a reference system of its new sensor and platform on top of a Gear VR, that it says it is shipping to headset makers around the world. Leap Motion is also bringing demos of its Interaction Engine (for natural hand gestures) in this portable medium to major VR events this month.
Leap Motion wants picking up VR objects to feel believable
Virtual reality is more immersive when you can pick up objects with your bare hands, rather than a controller or a pair of wand-style remotes. Leap Motion is one of the frontrunners in this area, having pivoted its candy bar motion-tracking sensor from desktop accessory to VR headset companion. To raise interest in the product -- which you still have to attach manually to an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive -- it's developed a new piece of software called the "Interaction Engine." Available as an add-on for Unity, it promises a more realistic experience while interacting with make-believe objects.
Razer's new Hacker Development Kit natively supports CryEngine
Razer unveiled its latest revision to its Open Source Virtual Reality (OSVR) developer's bundle (aka Hacker Development Kit v1.4) during GDC on Tuesday. The latest HDK offers a number of improvements over its previous iteration.
Leap Motion's new motion-sensing tech is built for VR
For several years now, Leap Motion has been working on bringing hand gestures to virtual reality. And it makes sense; using your hands to move digital objects is way more natural than fiddling with a controller. But to do this, you needed to strap one of the company's motion sensor peripherals in front of an existing VR headset, which is a little clunky to say the least. Plus, the sensor was still running the same software built for desktop PCs; a holdover from the days when Leap Motion's main focus was the aforementioned PC accessory. Now, however, the company is ready to take the next leap forward. Today it's announcing Orion, a brand new hardware and software solution that's built just for VR.
Leap Motion is perfecting natural hand gestures for VR
As immersive as virtual reality can be, you're still left holding awkwardly shaped controllers in your hands -- a reminder that you're very much in the real world. But what if instead of hitting A to move a rock, you could just use your hands? That's exactly what Leap Motion, known for its hand-gesture control sensors, has been working on for the past few years. Most recently, it's been working on something called the Interaction Engine, which aims to take things a step further: to make picking up objects in the digital world feel as natural as it does in the real one.
Razer to make a VR headset with built-in Leap Motion hand tracking sensor
The holy grail of virtual reality is presence; that feeling that you're truly there in that virtual world. That's why it was great when Leap Motion announced that it would be making a VR mount a few months ago -- manipulating objects with your hands is just so much more immersive than using a game controller. But in order to use it, you would already need to have a VR headset plus you'd need to get the Leap Motion sensor separately, which isn't exactly ideal. Now, however, you don't need to: Leap Motion has just announced that it's collaborating with Razer's OSVR to build a VR headset with the Leap Motion sensors built right in.
Mercedes-Benz unveils its vision of a self-driving car
Mercedes-Benz is far from the first automaker to experiment with self-driving cars, but it's making up for that in style at CES. Meet the F015 Luxury in Motion, a previously hinted-at concept car designed from the ground up for robotic transportation. Passengers normally sit face to face so they can talk more, and anyone can control the car through remote units and gestures (courtesy of Leap Motion) -- this is really a classic, luxurious carriage remade for the modern era, according to Mercedes. The vehicle even has color-coded LED lights on the front and back to let you know what the car is thinking. It can tell you whether or not it's in autonomous mode, or give pedestrians a heads-up when it's safe to cross. You probably won't ever see the F015 go on sale, but it's a good clue as to what Mercedes hopes you'll drive (or rather, not drive) in the years ahead. Aaron Souppouris contributed to this report.
Leap Motion lets Oculus users switch between VR and reality
Picture the scene: You're watching a documentary with an Oculus Rift headset, when suddenly you need a drink or receive a text. You have to stop the film, rip off the goggles and give your eyes a second to adjust, only to reverse the entire process when you're done a few moments later. Leap Motion, the hand-tracking accessory that can be used in parallel with Oculus VR hardware, has a solution. A new 'Quick Switch' demo lets you alternate between VR and a video passthrough simply by waving your hand in front of your face. It's a quick gesture and the proximity required from the headset (between one and three inches) means you're unlikely to trigger it by mistake. The company says Quick Switch will soon be available as part of its 'Unity Core Assets: VR Edition' toolkit and could be added to any Unity app. Video passthrough is already available with Oculus VR and Samsung's new Gear VR headset, and we suspect it'll come as standard in the final Oculus Rift consumer model. In the meantime, Leap Motion's offering could prove useful, especially if you're exploring the Large Hadron Collider and accidentally knock over a mug on your coffee table.
Watch the trippiest virtual trip through the Large Hadron Collider
We'll bet you didn't wake up this morning wanting to experience what a particle goes through as it zooms along the massive tunnels of the Large Hadron Collider. Oh, wait -- you did? Well, game development studio Funktronic Labs is waaay ahead of everyone. The firm has already created a trippy first-person virtual reality journey through the LHC, as an homage to the Higgs boson-like particle it found back in 2012. You can interact with the kaleidoscopic world and control your virtual trek by waving your hands (and using pinch-and-pull motions) over a Leap Motion detector, which triggers visual changes on screen. But, if you're lucky enough to have an Oculus Rift at this point in time, you can use one for a more immersive (and very, very trippy -- because this needs to be said more than once) experience. Don't have either? Don't worry: head after the break and watch a preview video to at least get a glimpse of the psychedelic experience.
HP's Leap Motion keyboard to be sold separately for $99
The Leap Motion controller is currently present in three forms: a $74.99 standalone dongle, inside the special edition HP Envy 17 laptop and inside an HP keyboard. The dongle -- with almost half a million units sold since launch -- and the keyboard are obviously the only ways to add this hand motion sensor externally, but the latter option was limited to select HP computers to begin with. Well, not any more. At Computex, Leap Motion told Engadget that as of this month, you'll be able to purchase said keyboard for about $99, and it'll work on any Windows 7 or Windows 8 PC as long as you have the software installed -- be it the current version or the free V2 update with skeletal tracking coming this summer.
Leap Motion's latest motion tracking tech can see your joints
The Leap Motion controller is a curious little motion sensor, but it isn't always easy to use. The hand-sensing tech has a tendency to lose sight of where your fingers are and almost every application that uses it has its own learning curve. Soon, that might change -- today Leap is launching the public beta for its next generation (V2) tracking software. This free update makes some big promises, including improved resistance to sunlight and infrared interference, better tracking algorithms and, best of all, the ability to track individual joints. We dropped by the company's San Francisco office to try it out and found the update to be a significant improvement.
MotionSavvy uses gesture recognition to give sign language a voice
If you're fluent in American Sign Language, congratulations: you know one more language than most of the people reading this post. The rest of us? A solution to our communicative failures is on the way. A company called MotionSavvy is building a Leap Motion-equipped tablet case that can actively interpret ASL and 'speak' the translation out loud. It's an ambitious project, but it works: at a recent Leap AXLR8R event we saw company founder Ryan Hait-Campbell sign over a MotionSavvy equipped slate. "Hello, my name is Ryan," he said. "What's your name?" It was an impressive demo, but Hait-Campbell admitted it was limited -- the setup can only recognize about 100 words at present, and since signs can vary slightly from person to person, those words don't consistently register for every user. Still, the company's prototype shows enormous potential. If the firm can outfit it with a larger word database and the ability to decipher personalized signing, MotionSavvy could become an incredible communication tool for the hearing-impaired.
This motion controlled dog wants to be the Candy Crush of physical therapy
Physical therapy isn't fun. It's a physical and emotional challenge that often consists of dull, repetitive tasks. It's boring, and offers patients almost no short-term rewards for their very real efforts -- but maybe it doesn't have to be that way. A new software platform called Visual Touch Therapy is trying to make physical rehabilitation fun, gamifying repetitive exercises by marrying a Leap Motion controller, a PC and a simple meme-inspired video game. The game itself is fairly simple: players perform simple motions over the Leap controller that cause a dog character to run (or fly a jetpack) across the screen, and their performance and improvement can be tracked, quantified and even sent to their physical therapist for review.
Disarm a bomb with your hand, a robot arm and Leap-motion controller
Neutralizing explosives, it turns out, is a delicate and complicated procedure -- but a company called Mirror Training hopes to make it simpler. "Our company has built an interface that literally uses your own hand and arm to move a robotic arm," announced CEO Liz Alessi. "I like to call it 'wear your robot.'" The interface uses a Leap Motion controller to detect an arm and hand movements, allowing a bomb squad robot to directly mirror its operator's actions. In tests, Alessi says, it has allowed operators to disarm mock-bombs twice as fast as traditional control methods.
Wave your hands like you just don't care to control videos on Vimeo
There's never been a better time to just kick back and watch whatever you want, what with the many ways in which content can be consumed nowadays. And if you enjoy watching videos on Vimeo, things are about to get even easier. The company recently announced that its Couch Mode feature is now friendly with the Leap Motion controller, allowing you to take over media commands by simply using your hands. A circle gesture with your finger can fast-forward or rewind; tap your finger in the air to play or pause; and swiping gets you to the next video.
Punching virtual sharks for points with the Oculus Rift and Leap Motion
"This could be a science lesson on the innards of sharks." Chance Ivey, game design lead for Chaotic Moon's whimsical Oculus Rift demo SharkPunch, was only half-joking when he made that comment to me as I exploded a megalodon with my fist in virtual space. That's because the minigame, which incorporates a visor-mounted Leap Motion controller to let users punch sharks in 3D, actually has firm roots in an educational simulator the Austin, Texas-based company's been developing for prospective clients. Yes, that connection may be hard to swallow at first -- after all, how does a frenzied, and fun, game of shark carnage assist players with learning? The simple answer is that it doesn't, but by no means does that lessen SharkPunch's educational origins in the slightest.
