Motion control company Leap Motion has garnered some buzz with recent developments, including a forthcoming integration with some Asus AIOs, but the company is taking it one jump further today by announcing it plans to launch the camera-based controller in the U.S. this spring.
The Leap Motion Controller camera measures about 3 inches long and plugs into the USB port on any Mac or PC. Once plugged in, the camera can track a user's hands and 10 individual fingers in 3D space with an accuracy of 1/100 millimeter to the user's hand gestures.
The high accuracy is due to a 150-degree field of view for the camera, along with motion tracking at 290 frames per second.
Leap Motion claims its controller is 200 times more accurate than other motion control cameras on the market, meaning Microsoft's bulkier Kinect sensor.
The Leap Motion Controller works with a range of gestures, including common touchscreen motions like pinch-to-zoom and scrolling through on-screen pages. Since the camera is tracking objects in 3D space, users can even hold something like a pencil and use that for drawing or handwriting applications.
No need to shop around
Leap Motion also announced that it partnered with Best Buy as the exclusive retailer for the Leap Motion Controller's spring launch in the U.S.
This is the second distribution partner Leap Motion announced this month. In early January, Asus revealed that it will start including Leap Motion's 3D motion camera with several of its upcoming all-in-one PCs and notebooks.
The Leap Motion Controller itself will sell for the shockingly low price of $69.99, with pre-orders going up on Best Buy's online store in February.
Leap Motion is also selling the cameras directly through its own site, which is already accepting pre-orders.
With a compact camera and impressively accurate motion tracking, the Leap Motion Controller could make for a more budget-friendly alternative to a full touchscreen monitor upgrade when it launches later in the spring.
