Slowly but surely Leap Motion is making its way toward a commercial
release. Today, the company has announced it's moving into the next phase of beta testing
and that it will be opening up its developer portal to the public later
in the week. While this still won't get folks a Leap device any faster,
it
will let them dig into Leap's tools and code base in
preparation for when they finally get one. The move marks a shift from
the company's previous SDK-focused beta to a consumer-focused one
that'll serve to refine the UX in Windows and OSX. Within each operating
system, there will be two levels of Leap control: basic, which
essentially allows you to use Leap in place of a touchscreen, and
advanced to allow for more 3D controls enabled by Leap's ability to
detect the pitch and yaw of hands in space.
CEO Michael Buckwald
gave us this good news himself, and also gave us a preview of Airspace,
Leap's app store, and a few app demos for good measure. As it turns
out, Airspace is a two-pronged affair -- Airspace Store is showcase for
all software utilizing the Leap API and Airspace Home is a launcher that
keeps all the Leap apps that you own in one convenient place. There
will be 50 apps in Airspace at the start of the beta, with offerings
from pro tools and utility apps to casual games, and we got to see a few
examples.
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