This week, we’re excited to share our latest milestone on the road to truly compelling mobile VR. We’ve joined forces with Qualcomm Technologies to combine their Snapdragon 835 mobile platform with our embedded hand tracking technology so that people can interact with mobile VR content using their bare hands.
Infographic: Universities lead in #VR #AR research, number of headsets is exploding, and 6/10 use #LeapMotion. Click To TweetUniversities are the earliest adopters of virtual and augmented reality. Even in the third age of VR, when the technology is small, inexpensive, and powerful enough that millions of people can own it, universities are still at the bleeding edge of VR research and development.
A recent survey of 553 universities in the VR First Network gives us an exciting look at what’s happening in the space, and what technologies the next generation of graduates are using right now.
With our thoughts, we make the world.” –The Buddha
Technology has the power to open up new realities. CES 2017 was about making those realities more intelligent, interactive, and human – from imaginary worlds unfolding before our eyes to objects that can talk to you and each other.
Here’s a quick review of our CES journey and what it means for the months and years ahead.
This week we hit the CES showfloor in Las Vegas with two missions: share our Mobile VR Platform with the world and play “spot Leap Motion in the wild.”
Spawn a block in midair, punch it into the ether: "This is brilliant… it's amazing… my wife should try it!" – Jeff Regan #VR #CES2017 pic.twitter.com/dPeNsfZ5fr
— LeapMotion (@LeapMotion) January 6, 2017
Stepping into a virtual @Volkswagen concept car @CES with a #VR headset and #LeapMotion interaction #CES2017 #SelfDriving pic.twitter.com/LrKB48QjwQ
— LeapMotion (@LeapMotion) January 5, 2017
On the ground at #CES2017 and VR is everywhere! pic.twitter.com/Wkpn3Jovdp
— VRScout (@VRScout) January 6, 2017
From our home base at the MCNEX booth, we’ve heard some great questions about our technology, roadmap, and vision for the future. Here are the 8 most frequently asked questions we’ve heard so far:
Explorations in VR Design is a journey through the bleeding edge of VR design – from architecting a space and designing groundbreaking interactions to making users feel powerful.
Stories are how we make sense of the world. One of the most effective ways to draw a user into any experience you build is to provide a story. Just ask yourself three questions: (1) What is the user doing? (2) Why are they doing it? (3) And how will they discover what “matters,” i.e. what’s worth doing?
Much of the narrative behind an experience will be told in the first few seconds, as the user becomes accustomed to the scene. The world and sound design should all reinforce a core narrative – whether you want to give your user the powers of a god, make them feel tiny, or build an emotional connection with a lonely hedgehog.
Explorations in VR Design is a journey through the bleeding edge of VR design – from architecting a space, to designing groundbreaking interactions, to making users feel powerful.
Virtual reality is a world of specters, filled with sights and sounds that offer no physical resistance when you reach towards them. This means that any interactive design with hands in VR has to contend with a new version of one of the world’s oldest paradoxes. What happens when an unstoppable force (your hand) meets an imaginary digital object?
Working in Silicon Valley, I’ve come to realize that everything that seems futuristic was actually on the drawing board a startling number of years in the past. Technology is like a flash in the darkness – long nights building towards an instant when suddenly everything is different. That’s why I think all of us work in technology, and why we at Leap Motion are always very much living in the future.
Explorations in VR Design is a journey through the bleeding edge of VR design – from architecting a space, to designing groundbreaking interactions, to making users feel powerful.
What’s the most important rule in VR? Never make your users sick. In this exploration, we’ll review the essentials of avoiding nausea, positive ergonomics, and spatial layouts for user safety and comfort.
Explorations in VR Design is a journey through the bleeding edge of VR design – from architecting a space, to designing groundbreaking interactions, to making users feel powerful.
Last week, we saw how interactive design centers on human expectations. Of course, it also begins with the hardware and software that drives those interactions. The Leap Motion Orion software opens up two fundamental interactions – pinch and grab. Using our Unity Core Assets detectors scripts, it’s also possible to track certain hand poses, such as thumbs-up.