Which is precisely why Leap Motion released this video showcasing its impressive Windows 7 and Windows 8 integration:

With Leap Motion, you can now do everything available in Windows for multitouch functionality — without actually touching anything. The company promises that operating system-level functionality and web browsing capabilities will work out of the box, no software or driver installations required, and will be simple to use.

“We want our users to have a magical experience, with easy and natural movements in the air leading to amazing interactions,” co-founder David Holz said in a statement. “Leap Motion’s mission is to break down the barriers between people and technology.”

The demo shows a user navigating Windows 8′s home screen tiles via in-air gestures, selecting and rearranging tiles, opening a web browser, and surfing sites while zooming sections for a closer look, all without touching a mouse or a touch-sensitive screen. In addition, previewing one of Leap Motion’s intended uses as a controller in the media room or kitchen, the demo shows how simple it is to scroll through Netflix, select a movie, and begin watching. Or to draw a scene in one of the Leap Motion apps, then rotate it in 3D.

The Leap Motion device is tiny, about the size of a pack of gum. It senses both of your hands and all 10 of your fingers with 200 times the sensitivity of the Xbox 360 Kinect. The company recently announced OEM bundling with select computers from ASUS, and an even more interesting deal with HP that will see the hardware melt away into the computer itself, embedding Leap Motion’s functionality into laptops to make them gesture-enabled right out of the box, without any hardware components to plug in.

And there’s more to come:

“We’re looking to embed our tech into watches, and smartphones, and glasses, and everything,” Leap Motion’s COO Andy Miller told me a couple of weeks ago.

All I want to know is: Where’s the Mac OS X demo?

Image credits: Leap Motion

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

I’m going way out on a limb here, and cutting it off behind me.

But I have a theory. The more Samsung “adds value” to Android by customizing a version of it for the Galaxy line of phones, as it’s doing with its new Galaxy S IV, the more it will suck.

This is, of course, the company that sold 400 million freaking phones last year. And 57 million smartphones in just one quarter of 2012. Samsung seems, more than any other, to be the company that has shaved a few hundred billion off Apple’s share price.

But companies, like people, do best when they stick to what they’re good at. Better yet, what they’re great at.

And let me tell you, there’s no way that Samsung is great at machine language translation. And facial/eye recognition to drive smart document scrolling. And building app stores for hundreds of millions of global users. And tying Kinect-style hand gestures to phone functionality navigation. And building a personal health/self quantification system. And programming a voice-controlled smart personal assistant. And implementing a ticket-and-card aggregating Apple Passbook clone. And any of a thousand other software-based features Samsung is adding to its phones and laying at the pagan feet of the ruthless god called product differentiation.

No bloody way.

Not as good as Google, for the features that Google chooses to build, and are amenable to machine learning and improvement. Not as good as Fitbit or Up or other companies whose livelihood is self-quantification and health. Not as good as Kinect, or Leap Motion, which are focused on gesture control.

“Some of the features definitely didn’t seem to work all that well,” analyst Avi Greengart, who Samsung pre-briefed about its phone, told me today. “For the hover feature … you have pick the exact right distance from the screen for it to activate, and you select things you weren’t intending to select.”

Other features worked better, like a camera app that puts you in the picture while you take the picture, Greengart said, though he was most concerned about the sheer quantity of new features overwhelming consumers.

“A lot of it will drive people crazy,” he said. “But at the same time people will buy the phone so they can check it out.”

There are a bunch of reasons for that. One is that Samsung is not a software company, in much the same way that Intel, though it employs thousands of software engineers, is not a software company. Another is that ancillary features added by a company that is primarily focused on using those features to sell more of that product are seldom as good as the features created by companies that focus on those things exclusively.

But the big one is that Google is getting frightfully good at software. Partly because it learns a million times a minute as customers interact with its solutions, and data drives its decisions, but also partly because it gets mobile in a way that few other companies do. Google currently has five of the top six apps in North America on any platform.

Do you really think Samsung can build a better mobile user experience than Google?

I haven’t yet handled, played with, or slept beside a Galaxy S IV. But the early reviews on that cool eye-tracking technology that auto-scrolls documents for you? It works “better in theory than they did in practice,” according to CNet. And that neat gesture phone control technology? It seems to “work intermittently.”

ZDnet wonders if this is innovation or gimmicks, and Gizmodo hits the nail on the smartphone head:

Truthfully, there are too many modifications to go into, and most of them aren’t things you’ll ever use. Which is really the S IV’s biggest problem.

In other words, Samsung’s over-the-top Broadway launch for the Galaxy S IV might be the perfect metaphor for a phone that has everything you don’t need: A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer in your pants.

Now, we’re talking about unreleased hardware and software, and there are bound to be improvements before Samsung ships the Galaxy S IV to customers. But putting together a coherent, excellent operating system with well-integrated features is hard. Google went through multiple iterations before finally starting to get it really right perhaps a couple of years ago. Microsoft went through hell for years, trying to find its way in mobile operating systems.

Is it likely that Samsung, which is building on the Android foundation but chipping away at every piece of Google’s fingerprints it can while doing so, can get it right?

I think not.

“Look at the Samsung Galaxy S III,” ABI Research analyst Aapo Markkanen told me. “Everything that was good about the software came from Google, and everything that was annoying came from Samsung.”

Others that I’ve talked to agree, but still see a role for Samsung’s innovation.

“I agree that some of the software is buggy,” Rocky Agrawal, an analyst and mobile consultant who also writes for VentureBeat, told me. “If they would stick to the non-core things that they’re adding it could make sense … but to go in and mess up core stuff like keyboards and error correction, that’s just innovation for the sake of innovation. You should differentiate on things that matter.”

We have seen this movie before, during the 90s and 2000s, in a different industry: the PC market. Much as Android is to iOS what Windows was to Macintosh, Android vendors are to each other what HP was to Dell was to Compaq was to every other faceless PC manufacturer: a clone trying to be an individual.

And with every vendor trying to deliver unique value, a unique product, and a unique brand in a by-nature commoditized market, they get desperate. The result: software that adds a line item in the product comparison chart and a bullet point in the marketing blurb, but is really just crapware.

I’ve been there. I’ve done that. I’ve been that crapware vendor, sad to say, bundling a solution into HP’s, Asus’s, and even Intel’s offerings.

And my money’s on something similar happening here.

(Oh, and these user interface issues will be at the heart of our discussion at the Mobile Summit in Sausalito on April 1 and 2, where we’ve invited the mobile industry’s leading players. We’re hosting a wide cross-section of ecosystem from Google, Samsung, Facebook across the major carriers like AT&T and Verizon, to Cisco, Intel and the major analytics folks, like Flurry — along with the top 60 or so publishers and disruptive private companies.)

photo credit: Great Beyond via photopin cc

Imagine being able to mute your TV by shushing it or pausing a video simply by getting up. If Cube26 has its way, such interactions will come to TVs and smartphones in the near future.

CEO Saurav Kumar said today at CES 2013′s Eureka Park that he believes Cube26′s “natural vision control” could revolutionize how we interact with all manner of smart devices.

“Lots of smart devices are coming to the market, and everyone wants to get better at interacting with these devices — especially companies like Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft,” Kumar said. “We’re trying to make the machine learn how humans interact so it can naturally interact with them.”

Interactions that Cube26 can already manage on a TV include:

• Mute: silence a video by placing a finger to your lips.
• Pause: Hold your hand up to pause a video stream.
• Presence detection: If you get up and move out of the room, the video pauses. It resumes as soon as you are back in front of the set.
• Facial recognition: Detect and catalog your emotions based on your facial gestures.

Kumar thinks the practical applications of his technology are bountiful — like how Netflix could use it to learn what videos you like based on your facial expressions.

“Netflix has good recommendations, but it could be more personal. Every time I’m watching this one show, I like it and it could feed that emotional information back to the app,” he said.

Cube26 is working on other gestures as well, including volume controls and selection of items in an application.

Kumar said his company has signed one big customer so far to use its tech, but he could only say it is “one of the largest Japanese electronics companies.”

“They are developing their retail marketing product line and using it inside shops and stores,” Kumar said. “They want to know if that person is a male, female, happy, etc. It could used be for product placement or other things.”

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Cube26 was founded in January. It changed its name from PredictGaze to Cube26 a few days ago.

Check out the video below to see Cube26 in action.

The partnership with ASUS will see the Leap, a device about the size of a pack of gum, bundled with select ASUS computers shipping this year. The Leap functions much as a Nintendo Wii or Xbox Kinect but is much more precise and sensitive, tracking movements of both hands and all 10 fingers at 290 frames per second and detecting movements as small as 1/100 of a millimeter.

I talked to Leap Motion’s president and chief operating officer, Andy Miller, about the announcements.

“We’re starting with all-in-ones and then moving to high-end laptops,” Miller said. “An all-in-one is just a great demonstration of our technology.”

Bundling the Leap with ASUS is just the beginning, Miller told me. The Leap adds physical gestures to the now-standard computer interface vocabulary of visuals, mice, keyboards, and touch, and “lots of other OEMs” are interested in the technology.

“Companies are interested in using Leap in laptops, tablets, robotic surgery … we’ve been contacted by thousands of places from fast-food places to fighter jet manufacturers to integrate this technology,” Miller said.

40,000 developers have expressed interest in building software that takes advantage of Leap’s gesture technology, and Leap Motion has already sent out 12,000 units to help developers build and test their code. Apps that are being built for Leap include games, productivity apps, music and art apps, and more, Miller said.

Leap Motion is also building an app store so that developers can monetize their Leap-compatible apps. The app store will be available for both Windows 8 and Mac OS X.

I asked Miller if Asus will be building any Leap-specific apps, as the computer manufacturer has already built a significant amount of software for its netbooks, laptops, and desktops in an attempt to differentiate itself from competitors. Miller confirmed that “it’s on the table,” and that the Leap is now “getting into their roadmap,” which would enable ASUS to build software that integrates gestures into a native, built-in way to interact with the company’s PCs.

Leap’s gesture-based technology seems a natural for gaming, and Miller said Leap Motion is also talking to gaming console manufacturers about incorporating better-quality gesture support into their platforms, but that “it’s not our priority right now.”

The Leap is now available for preorder at $69.99; the retail version, when available, will cost slightly more. ASUS has not yet set pricing for its Leap-equipped PCs, however.

The new $30 million funding round will help Leap Motion bring the technology to other OEMs and to retail channels later this year.

“Leap Motion is poised to fundamentally change human/computer interaction, and this new funding will help us bring our technology to the mass global market,” Leap Motion CEO Michael Buckwald said in a statement. “With this influx of capital, coupled with the major OEM partnership we also announced today, we’re ready to make 2013 the year of the new interface.”

Here’s a Leap in action:

The only thing needed now? Software that understands gestures.

Which is precisely why over the next two weeks, Leap Motion will send 10,000 Leap units to new developers to help them build software applications and games which take advantage of the new gesture-based input capabilities … and why the company has attracted over 40,000 developers so far.

San Francisco-based Leap Motion has already put the Leap device into limited mass production.

It’s about the size of a pack of gum, or small iPod. Sitting right in front of your Mac or PC, the device senses your hand motions and allows you to control your computer with hand gestures in the air. Those motions will allow you to zoom in on pictures, rotate on-screen 3-D objects, draw, write, create 3-D computer-aided designs, and much more.

The device costs about $70 at pre-order prices, and will be delivered to consumers in early 2013. But before the hardware is delivered, Leap Motion wants a rich software ecosystem.

So the company is also releasing an updated software development kit (SDK) today, with new features that will help developers build gesture-aware apps much faster than before. The new SDK offers pre-fabricated building blocks: a library of defined interaction APIs. Which means that instead of trying to comprehend how a user’s hand moved, developers will now have access to a library of sensed motions: a twist, a push, a sweep. The Leap software will report a defined and pre-identified motion, and developers will now simply need to map that gesture to actions in their applications.

“Our top priority is making sure that when the Leap Motion controller ships to consumers, it is supported by a wide array of quality apps,” Leap Motion co-founder and CEO Michael Buckwald said in a statement.

Leap Motion released a demo app showcasing how an intern software developer used the new SDK to create a simple 3-D game:

Finally, the company announced that Leap will ship with an app store, so users can pick up more software that understands what they are doing with their hands, and so developers can monetize their creations.

There is no word yet, however, on whether major applications such as Microsoft Office, iPhoto, or even web browsers such as Chrome will incorporate support for Leap gestures. Or whether operating system vendors such as Microsoft, Apple, and Google (yes, Chrome OS) will built support for Leap right into the system.

Leap Motion has raised $14.55 million from various investors to take the Leap and its gesture language to the world.

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With Flutter, you can use a wave or hold up your hand to control iTunes or Spotify music on your computer. All you need is a webcam and the app. The company boasts that more than 50,000 gestures have been used thus far with the app.

The technology is similar to Microsoft’s Kinect, but Flutter points out that Kinect is limited by the hardware and the fact that it can only be used on the Xbox and some Windows programs. “Flutter is Kinect without the hardware,” said co-founder Mehual Nariyawala during his presentation at Y Combinator’s Demo Day. “Naveet, my co-founder is the Tom Brady of computer vision,” said Nariyawala.

Flutter has gained so much attention that Daniel Ek, chief executive of Spotify, even tweeted about the company.

Flutter is one of 39 companies presenting at Y Combinator’s Demo Day Spring 2012 event. Check out other cool companies making their debut here.