Leap Motion opens door to reach more virtual worlds
SAN FRANCISCO: California virtual reality startup Leap Motion on Wednesday opened a door for makers of games or other applications to literally touch virtual worlds.
The San Francisco firm is using its expertise in computer tracking of hands and fingers to let people manipulate things in virtual reality with the kind of dexterity that they do in the real world.
Leap Motion released “Orion,” a combination of hardware and software that lets people use their hands to interact naturally with virtual environments instead of merely watching or needing to use controllers.
“I’m not just being shown a digital space, I am actually in a digital space,” Leap Motion co-founder David Holz told AFP while providing a demonstration of Orion.
“It is a seminal point where technology is just another material in there world; there are atoms and electrons and then bits and bytes all just one thing, and that is pretty awesome.”
Microsoft is expected to release a developers version of HoloLens augmented reality visors this year.
“Having hands is critical for virtual reality togo mainstream ,” Leap Motionco-founder and chief executive Michael Buck wald told AFP.
“Many thousands of years of evolution have given us the ability to use our hands to do incredibly complicated things in a way that, to us, seems automatic.”