I saw the pre-sales video on how the LEAP Motion Controller was going to change everything about interfacing with a computer. It sure looked cool and for 80 bucks, heck man, I willing to change the world for that amount...as long as I don't have to do anything else. So I preordered this device and in time I forgot all about it.

Then when it showed up this week I was pleasantly surprised. It's packaged very "Apple-like" inside and out. With a nice and easy set up routine, you can bring out your inner maestro quickly. Now, I tested this on my Mac running 10.8.4 with a 3.33GHz proc and 8Gb of RAM. It also works on Windows but I didn't test that. Of course it'd be easy to start complaining about the sensitivity or that it's not wireless and requires a cable.

Truthfully, I didn't want it for that stuff. I was in presales for 6 years so I know the drill. I really wanted to see what it COULD do. I'm interested in writing code to this controller and how well documented and the structure of the API framework. Remember when the Microsoft Kinect came out? Many called it a disappointment and hated it. If you hated the Kinect, then you'll hate the LEAP for sure. It will not replace your mouse or keyboard or Wacom tablet. At least the LEAP doesn't have a dance off between Darth Vader and Han Solo....

What made the Kinect great was the API. It was a blast writing code to work in 3D space. I designed light controllers, a modeler using moveIT on Autodesk, etc. The openness of it made it awesome! Now it was cumbersome, and very "lab only" due to the bulky hardware, cabling, code base...but the LEAP...yeah...this could be the ticket.

Signing up for a developer account was simple as the set up. The controller supports C++, C#, Unity, Java, JS and surprisingly it also supports Python. I downloaded the SDK and watched day turn to night as I dug into the docs and begin at line 00