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HP To Package Leap Motion Sensor Into — Not Just With — Some Devices
cylonlover writes "It hasn't even been released yet but the Leap Motion could already be considered something of a success – at least with PC manufacturers. Following in the footsteps of Asus, who announced in January that it would bundle the 3D motion controller with some of its PCs, the world's biggest PC manufacturer has joined the gesture control party. But HP has gone one step further, promising to build the Leap Motion technology into some future HP devices." (See this video for scenes of users scrabbling with their hands in empty air, and get ready for more of it.)
While I appreciate what was said in the video, I can't imagine that I'd ever prefer leap motion, or even touch screens, over a mouse. It all boils down to the physical exertion of lifting my arm to perform input vs resting my arm on a desk and lightly moving my wrist. I can overcome intuitive input by learning to use a less intuitive system, but I will never overcome more physically exertive systems being more physically exertive.
I recall hearing that Chefs learn to manipulate a whisk with their wrist because the smaller muscles are less tiring in the long run, even though it's more natural to want to use your shoulder and arm to perform the action. This seems to be analogous to these new input styles.
With all the fancy touch enabled UIs floating around on tablets and phones, the PC can finally make a similar evolutionary advancement. Touch screens on the desktop or a laptop are annoying to reach for, but a device sitting in the keyboard is even closer at hand than a mouse. Windows 8 doesn't seem so silly now.
If this sort of thing were built into touch-screen devices, when the screen is touched, it would be possible for the device to identify exactly which finger was responsible for the touch. This could considerably increase the versatility of using a touch-screen as an input medium
Also, you could get hover-detection practically for free.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
While the press release for Leap doesn't go into specifics, I can only imagine how bad HP will screw this up like they've done with their printer drivers. They haven't bothered to give you real drivers, just some generic universal drivers which, pointedly, sucks. Even for their newest printers, you get only a Universal driver. I guess they need to pay all those executives who keep halving the stock price every few years the big bonuses they've come to expect rather than invest in producing the software.
Not to mention the new interface on their printers, like Windows 7, make you jump through more menu selections to accomplish simple tasks. And like Windows 7, the interface is slower as are the start up times.
If this is the way HP is going to go, I forsee a very bleak future for them.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
interpret THIS, buddy
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Don't hate the player (HP), hate Windows 7.
Those generic universal drivers which you feel suck are exactly what makes HP printers work great with 'other' operating systems.
Will it magically get rid of fingerprints too?
How about solving the low accuracy of touch issue?
I can understand touch when you don't have better controls available, but at a PC you have much better controls right there.
Leap Motion + Kinet = Minority Report style UI control becoming a reality..??
Leap Motion works a lot like Kinect, but scaled down. It works over a smaller volume, so it can track smaller objects more accurately. On the downside, your hands have to be inside that small volume.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
People keep coming up with these nice shiny user interface devices, but they always seem to forget how important tactile feedback is.
Sure I can type on a touchscreen keyboard, but it takes twice as long, because I have to actually look at the screen and check that a) it has noticed I am typing, and b) it has correctly recognised what I had intended to type. With a proper physical keyboard I can pick up such information purely by proprioception, audio and tactile feedback.
The same sort of issue applies with any sort of hand waving interface: there is a much greater potential for the computer getting it wrong, and it takes longer to recognise & fix it when it occurs.
Untill these things can be made as reliable as a physical push button I think people should be a lot more careful where and what they use them for.
makes you wonder exactly what PSY's printing out on his TPS reports.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Fingerprints can be dealt with by regularly wiping the screen. If you wipe down a touch screen just once a day, it will make a huge difference.
Touch screens involve the very natural gesture of pointing... a communication mechanism that human beings learn to use even before they've learned to talk. It's admittedly imprecise, but not every type of application requires any more precision than that. Conversely, however, some types of application *DO* require more precision than that, and it's a grievous user-interface mistake to utilize an imprecise input device for such contexts.
I agree with you about input devices on a PC. They are already sufficiently diverse that a touch-screen isn't really necessary outside of an application that is designed to be used only in a kiosk situation.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Had this news come from Apple, Razer, Samsung, Huawei, or any other tech manufacturer, I'd be fairly excited.
But this is fucking HP, for crying out loud. The same HP that lost its lead in desktop PC sales, had serious QC issues with its notebooks recently, botched what was to be the biggest merger in the PC industry, drove its lucrative digital camera business into the ground, and is on the fast track to demolish its lead in the undisputed cash cow, printers, as well.
Should we really give them another chance on a new product, when there are alternatives??
it would be possible for the device to identify exactly which finger was responsible for the touch
Unfortunately, the Leap Motion cannot do this. Or at least, if this functionality exists it is not available to developers working with the Leap. You don't get any sort of point cloud, or even raw camera data, all you get is a series of vectors where the Leap has detected linear highlights (and using stereo cameras, deduced to be cylindrical objects) and the positions where it has detected them. You know where fingers are, but not which fingers are which.
You can deduce which fingers are which by counting the number of fingers to the left and right of the one that touched the screen, and assuming a particular handedness (which could be provided to the program as a user profile setting, for instance).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
"You know where fingers are, but not which fingers are which"
I know exactly what you mean, but surely you can use heuristics for this, at least some of the time?
Now I'm curious about how reliably this is able to detect and track a pinch gesture....
Only if all fingers are currently present and visible, or all have been present (and externally identified, either using manual calibration or an additional camera and some sort of classifier) at once and the remaining fingers have been continuously visible since (no occlusions), and the hand has not changed orientation. Forming a fist and then extending a single finger would prevent identification.
Only if all fingers are currently present and visible, or all have been present (and externally identified, either using manual calibration or an additional camera and some sort of classifier) at once and the remaining fingers have been continuously visible since (no occlusions), and the hand has not changed orientation. Forming a fist and then extending a single finger would prevent identification.
...and we could all guess which finger that would be.
Should we really give them another chance on a new product, when there are alternatives??
Depends on the alternatives, and intended use. While HP has made some mis-steps, I'd still put their hardware over most of their competitors, and right along-side the rest. The leap motion *could* be a great product for artists. I'm wondering how it could implement with autodesk's sketchbook, google's sketchup, Zbrush, 3DS Max, etc. This plus a wacom tablet could offer quite a few methods of creative expression. In time we will see how widely it is supported, and that will be the difference maker.
I'm picturing a 17 inch HP Envy with an integrated Leap sensor just past the trackpad. If it can calibrate 1-to-1 with the screen and be supported by the software I use, that would be a hell of an incentive for me to upgrade.
Using cameras to track motion for the purpose of computer input pre-dates the mouse. It is neither a new idea or a clever one. It failed then, and it will fail now for the same reason- uncertain input and lack of 'punctuation'.
The 'mouse' is NOT a passing gimmick. The mouse is an insanely perfect input device. Consider the mouse:
- cheap
- comfortable and convenient to use, even over long sessions
- mechanically reliable
- accurate, repeatable input
- buttons allow for trivial input of perfect punctuation
Leap Motion tracks your fingertips sometimes with RELATIVE high-accuracy, and that's it. Absolute spatial accuracy requires constant calibration, which is not practical. Obviously, Leap Motion can mitigate this somewhat with a 'floating' cursor, but this makes less sense if you are tracking more than one fingertip.
So Leap Motion really wants you to track 'gestures', but gestures are notoriously unreliable. Do we use the mouse to input gestures? Almost never. Worse, the gestures have to be chunked into those representing 'punctuation' and those representing 'motion data'. The unreliability of such a system goes thru the roof.
OK, so you say you'll use one hand on the keyboard for 'punctuation' input and the other hand floating for Leap Motion positional input. Hmmm. Better make that one hand on the mouse, and one above LM. Now, at least, you can isolate periods of LM 'input' in time, but you can see how LM is becoming more of a pain.
As a general peripheral, LM really is a non-starter (which is why the company attempted to crowd-source killer-apps by giving away so many of the things). As a highly specialised device to, say, allow an animator to construct some quick-n-dirty motion capture, Leap Motion could be very useful indeed, but that market is going to be very small- which is why previous similar devices have been very expensive and very narrowly marketed.
Don't get me wrong- like so many I was excited at the possibilities of LM if it proved to be a real product. Unfortunately, a little bit of thought and research suggested that LM was really far closer to Microsoft's Kinnect- ie., a camera based input device only suited for simple games aimed at young children- games that act is if they have correct input whether you do anything in front of the camera or not.
If your hand is close enough to the device for any finger to touch the screen, given the actual range that the device detects on, how would any fingers be not within the field of view of such a sensor?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Huawei? Really?
Actually, the Republicans got a few Democrats to join them in a filibuster, because they were too cowardly to let the actual bill come up for a vote. They would have easily defeated it in the House, but they'd rather not lose a vote to the Democrats, and the House GOP reps would rather not have to go on record for the vote.
I'm against the bill, but I think the Republicans should at least have the courage to do a talking filibuster if they're going to filibuster.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
While I appreciate what was said in the video, I can't imagine that I'd ever prefer leap motion, or even touch screens, over a mouse. It all boils down to the physical exertion of lifting my arm to perform input vs resting my arm on a desk and lightly moving my wrist. I can overcome intuitive input by learning to use a less intuitive system, but I will never overcome more physically exertive systems being more physically exertive. I recall hearing that Chefs learn to manipulate a whisk with their wrist because the smaller muscles are less tiring in the long run, even though it's more natural to want to use your shoulder and arm to perform the action. This seems to be analogous to these new input styles.
Precisely. Well said.
I will give you a tip. Buy a "low-profile" mouse instead of those big-humped things that come with most machines. Your forearm will then be able to rest on the desk. Thus, instead of using your wrist muscles, you will only need to use your fingers muscles to mouse. That is, it will be even less physically exertive.
If you do this, you will eventually feel a need to turn the sensitivity of the mouse up, due to the decreased effort, and will end up never really using your wrist muscles for mousing again. Bonus: no carpal tunnel.
Fingers are designed for fine movement and control. The wrist, not so much.
Sorry to double-post...
These days, I have given up my mouse almost entirely––for a trackpad.
I now use only two fingers to interact with all the usual types of software. Additionally, I am now quite fast with Photoshop, Google Sketchup, Power Point (ugh), various games, and advanced scientific software like LabView (a graphical programming language). All with two fingers. The wrist is only involved in moving my hand from the keyboard to the very close-by trackpad (well, really it's more of a shoulder motion, but a short distance).
Anyone thinking that we are headed towards a "Minority Report"-type of interface is simply going in the wrong direction. Less physical exertion, not more.
I love them, but apparently females seem to hate them. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
It can't match 1:1 to the screen. There is no eye tracking, which would be required for proper eye-hand-screen coordination.
Sony managed to be first to patent a combo with eye tracking, however.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
"Forming a fist and then extending a single finger" is not a very good gesture, so that is not a major concern.
A good variety of user interfaces can be developed without exact identification of all fingers in all possible positions. Identifying a finger in a touchscreen can be done if that finger is the thumb, in a natural resting position; then, the other fingers can be from their relative distance.
This in particular allows for chording gestures, the ones used for touch-typing and that could be used for other precision tasks.
Wayne Westerman, who invented the software technology later bough by Apple to become the iPhone, explains in his master theses how it's done (see chapter 4), and how they're used for reliable input (chapter 5).
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
You don't need 3D space recognition to identify which finger is being used - it can be done from their size and relative positions for a good deal of versatility.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Why are people so fixated with the Minority Report UI? It was a terrible interface. I prefer the one from Harry Potter, way cooler.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Relative position to what, exactly? The other fingers aren't touching the screen.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Relative to the thumb, which can be recognized on its own. The other fingers will touch the screen later at some point after the thumb; all fingers have a fixed position and distance from it, so you can identify each finger after calibrating for hand size.
If you add the temporal dimension, you can recognize a variety of chords and multi-touch positions. Sure, it's not perfect tracking of all fingers the all time, but you don't need that to recognize a high number of hand positions, enough to provide a varied gesture-based control.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
It can't match 1:1 to the screen. There is no eye tracking, which would be required for proper eye-hand-screen coordination. Sony managed to be first to patent a combo with eye tracking, however.
of course, I forgot the eye-tracking, but with the web-cams these things come with, it wouldn't be out of reach...