Today we’re excited to announce the opening of our new design research studio in London with visionary VR/AR filmmaker Keiichi Matsuda, who will lead the new office and assume the role of VP of Design and Global Creative Director.
With this new London office, we’re building on our team of world-class creatives and engineers to further our mission to design robust, believable and honest visions of a world elevated by technology, with human input at the center. Leap Motion’s efforts will seek to set a new standard for interaction design with the digital world, and define the core user experience for the next generation of mobile and all-in-one headsets.
Our vision is a world elevated by technology, with human input at the center. Click To Tweet“Virtual and augmented reality are at a critical point in their evolution,” said Michael Buckwald, Leap Motion CEO. “With the rapid adoption of VR/AR over the next few years within industries, and integration into how we live, work, and play — it is essential that we lay the groundwork for a magical user experience through a unified design philosophy.”
“We can’t predict what everyday life will look like in the future. What we do know is that technology will completely transform the world,” said Matsuda. “It is our responsibility to find a path through the dangers and challenges ahead, and construct a positive and inclusive vision of a world that we want to live in. I want to bring my experience in design and world-building to bring about this change.”
Matsuda is a celebrated filmmaker and designer whose research explores how emerging technology will impact future lives. His multi-disciplinary approach fuses video, interaction design, and architecture to create vibrant “hyper-real” environments where the distinctions between physical and virtual start to dissolve. Matsuda’s award-winning work includes provocative shorts, such as HYPER-REALITY and Augmented (Hyper) Reality: Domestic Robocop, and the upcoming short film Merger.
If you’re interested on testing/collaborating on VR Music production apps, checkout http://AliveInVR.io, it supports the Leap using Unreal Engine. We’re based in London too and keen to try newer Leap SDKs if available.
i’m really disapointed about LEAP MOTION. Of course, the marketing is good, leap motion is able to do a lot of nice things but according to the content, there is near NOTHING.
I bought Leap motion for my htc vive, it’s ONLY useful for FSX, and that’s all ! all other programs are for demonstration or gadgets ! of course, the demos are fun but WHERE are the apps which use it ?
there is absolutely nothing except FSX. For other VR titles, it’s only cosmetic (altspace, bigscreen…) , no interaction, so USELESS .
what are you doing Leap motion ??? why don’t you develop for some games or apps ?
Content is a catch-22. Developers need lots of users to justify spending time and energy on building Leap Motion integrations. Users need lots of content to justify buying a piece of technology and coming back to it. This challenge is not one that is unique to Leap Motion – it’s the dilemma that faces all new gaming and entertainment platforms, and faced VR in the early days.
We’re working on solving this problem by embedding our technology into headsets rather than remaining an optional add-on accessory. This reduces input fragmentation and ensures developers that they have a userbase (100% of people who buy particular headsets). It also benefits users who don’t need to buy and set up an add-on.
Ahead of that, we are laying the groundwork for an entire generation of content, some of which we are developing ourselves. The London design research studio is the capstone of this effort.
thank you for your answer. i think the lack of content prevent sales. i know twice people which bought Leap motion and are also disapointed about this. So Leap motion is for them just a gadget (it’s funny to get 4 hands on Bigscreen & Altspace…. but.. it’s funny only 5 minutes)
the different demos show a lot of potential but badly, i know only FSX which benefits from Leap motion in VR. (it’s really good with Flyinside)
As you know, The new controlers ‘knuckles’ for Vive are going to be available soon, so i think Leap motion will be outdated however. 🙁
To be clear, the Leap Motion Controller and VR Developer Mount are a developer kit, analogous to the Oculus DK1. Unlike the Knuckles controllers, they are not intended to be a final consumer product.
i understand this, but if it’s not intented to be a consumer product, it’s however sold for the consumers, and it lacks content despite several years leap motion is out. that’s the reason people which bought Leap motion can be disapointed.
Great to see a Leap Motion studio kinda in Europe!
[…] Our vision is a world elevated by technology, with human input at the center. Click To Tweet“Virtual and augmented reality are at a critical point in their evolution,” said Michael Buckwald, Leap Motion CEO. “With the rapid adoption of VR/AR over the next few years within industries, and integration into how we live, work, and play — it is essential that we lay the groundwork for a magical user experience through a unified design philosophy.” […]