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Leap Motion's CEO: '2013 will be year of the new interface'Jan 03, 2013 (Los Angeles Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Goodbye mouse and keyboard, hello air. Leap Motion, a 3-D motion sensor that allows users to interact with computers simply by gesturing in the air -- think Tom Cruise in "The Minority Report" -- has secured an additional $30 million in funding, the company announced Thursday. Leap also announced that computer maker Asus will be one of the first manufacturers to bundle Leap's technology directly into some of its computers and notebooks. The new products with Leap Motion devices pre-installed should be available later this year. "We're ready to make 2013 the year of the new interface," Leap Motion's CEO Michael Buckwald said in a statement. Leap introduced its motion controller last May. It's an iPod sized box that sits in front of your computer and gives you 8 cubic feet of 3D interaction space. As long as you are standing within the controller's range, the Leap Motion controller can track your movements with a sensitivity said to be 200 times that of Microsoft's Kinect or Nintendo's Wii. It can even track different finger movements. The Leap Motion controller is available for pre-order for $69.99 on the company's website. Last spring Leap said it hoped to start shipping the device by this month. More recently, the company said it will ship the device to consumers early this year. Leap has already sent 12,000 free units to developers to get them working on cool applications. ___ (c)2013 the Los Angeles Times Visit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |