Leap

“InAir TV”. SeeSpace Blurs the Lines of Your TV Experience.

A few years ago as CES wrapped up I posted about the beginning of the convergence between TV, your computer, and other content mediums. While the progress has been slow, it is definitely underway. Now days almost every TV, Blueray player, and DVD player is net connected with smart apps that allow for additional content delivery. Other hardware devices like the Roku box, Logitech’s Review, and Google’s Fiber initiative are continuing to blur the lines between a passive TV experience, and a deeper, richer interactive experience.

As CES winds down, one of the more exciting things to come from it this year is SeeSpace’s InAir TV, which brings an augmented reality experience to your TV set. InAir TV places Web content inline with the consumers’ TV viewing experience, without having to switch to a second screen. This creates a completely new dynamic medium similar to the UI?UX in the movie “Minority Report”.

The InAir TV which is still in KickStarter phase, involves using augmented reality technology to overlay additional content analyzed from what you are watching. The secondary content floats on a 3D layer between the TV picture and the viewer if you have a 3D TV. This second layer of content creates a more interactive, intuitive, and dynamic viewing experience. For example, if you are watching a Formula 1 race, you would be able to pull up the drivers, their stats, track conditions, leader info, points and standings, plus more. Instead of shrinking the picture on your TV screen to fit the additional information in, it would float above, or beside enhancing the viewing experience.

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The hardware is controlled in two ways. The first allows you to control InAir TV using your smartphone using its screen as a track pad. The second takes it to the next level by allowing you to use gesture control via a Kinect, or Leap controller.

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SeeSpace will be launching a Kickstarter campaign later this month and will be available to pre-order for $99 later this year.

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A Great Leap Forward. Gesture Based Computer Control.

I’ve been pretty fascinated with the Microsoft Kinect for creating Minority Report style user interfaces and computer input. There is a new device that does what the Kinect does, and possibly jumps ahead of it by being available for desktop systems like Windows, and Mac OS X.

Leap is about the size of an iPhone dock or large flash drive. It’s easy to use, you simply install the software, plug the device in, wave your hands to calibrate the system, and your off and running.

From the examples in the video, there are a ton of possibilities here, but where I think there is huge growth potential would be point of sale and visual merchandising solutions.

The fact that you can use your hands, or simply a finger to input information without having to make physical contact with the device is huge. Imagine being able to input, or interact with a screen behind a store front window, or in a store display. Leap has an interactive window of about 8 cubic feet from the actual computer set up. Plenty of room to create an interactive bubble in the environment.

Originally designed to aid developers with 3D modeling, Leap has expanded to allow the control of a wide variety of applications.  Leap is 200 times more sensitive than existing touch-free products and technologies and can track movements as closely as 1/100th of a millimeter.Pretty impressive if you have ever played with the Kinect development kit and know it’s limitations. The other nice thing about Leap is you can develop and define custom gestures which could be applicable to specific applications designed to take advantage of the hardware.

Oh and, the cost of the device is $69.99 which makes it extra affordable.