June 2013 American Way Magazine - page 36

“Inreallife,whenwepickupanobject,we
do it thoughtlesslyandwith 100percentac-
curacy,”Buckwaldsays.“Theideaistobring
that tocomputers.We’renot askingpeople
to learnanew languageortomasteraseries
of contrivedgestures.Wearegivingpeople
theabilityto interactwithcomputers inthe
samewaythey interactwiththerealworld.”
Likemanyinnovations,thisonewasborn
in response toa frustration.Formore than
30years,ascomputershaveevolvedbyleaps
andbounds, thebasicmeansof controlling
them—mouse and keyboard — have re-
mainedlargelyunchanged.WhileBuckwald
saysthatthemouseisgreatforsomethings,—
clickingonalink,forinstance,orworkingin
MicrosoftExcel— itoftenbogsdown in the
realmofthreedimensions,whereitdepends
onadelugeofdrop-downmenusandsophis-
ticatedprogramsthattakeyearsto learn.
That limitationwasmaddening—not
only toBuckwaldbut tohis childhoodpal
fromFlorida,LeapMotionco-founderDavid
Holz,whooftenpointedout howabsurd it
was that while a 5-year-old could shape
aPlay-DohcoŠeecup inminutes,creatinga
computermodelofthatsamecuptookhours
ofworkbyatrainedengineer.
As aPh.D. student inappliedmathemat-
ics at theUniversity ofNorthCarolina in
ChapelHill,Holzsethismindtodeveloping
adevice thatwouldfill inwhere themouse
fellshort.AndheaskedBuckwald—who,as
anundergraduateatGeorgetownUniversity
inWashington,D.C.,builtandsoldastartup
totheYellowPages—tohelpbringthetech-
nologytomarket.
Itwasn’teasy.
“You’dthinkthattrackingmotionshould
be relatively simple if you can see itwitha
camera,”Buckwald says. “But it turns out
it’sverydi•cult.Fingers lookverysmallon
camera,andpeoplemovethemveryquickly.”
To set itself apart fromwhat alreadyex-
isted, thedevicewouldhave to track those
movements faithfully in all directions —
not just up and down and left and right
—withoutthe latency,ortime-lapse,ofother
motion sensors.What’smore, the sensor
needed tobe small (theLeapMotionCon-
troller isabout thesizeofapackofgum), af-
fordable (it retails for$80) andnot suckup
toomuchofaPC’sbrainpower(itusesavery
lowpercentageofacomputer’sCPU).
HowBuckwaldandHolzpulledthisoŠis
amatterofsomesecrecy.
“ButIcantellyouthatthecamerasweuse
TECHNOLOGY
38 JUNE 01, 2013 AA.COM/AMERICANWAY
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