Talk:Leap Motion

Restored Competition section

A relevant NPOV section on competition to Leap Motion was deleted by an IP editor with no justification. Given these facts, the most likely reason is an employee removing information in order to promote their company (Conflict of Interest). For this reason, I have undone the edit. If the IP editor wishes to delete the section, he should provide a concrete reason. David Spector (talk) 01:10, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

It's a bizarre edit though ... it actually looks like aggressive marketing to me from LM3LABS. The competition section would best be served by mentioning the actual conversation, as there are many competitors, not this single one. Devoting five paragraphs in an already short article on a single competitor who, afaict, seems barely notable seems rather odd. Having a hard time even coming up with reasonable ghits for this company or for the AirStrike product. (No reviews and only a couple of videos, is this even real?) Full disclosure, I work at Leap, but, I've been editing wikipedia quite a bit longer. joshbuddy, talk 10:14, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I am removing this section as it appears to be blatant marketing done by a competing corporation. Gandydancer (talk) 13:50, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

A competition section is often ripe for link-bait and plugs by competing companies. They should be deleted in most cases. The exception is when the sources contain some kind of analysis and we offer the same. For example, if we cover how the products compare to competitors, if the organization is specifically known for being part of a hyper-competitive market or if they are part of a group of companies with a collective reputation. CorporateM (Talk) 17:18, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Updating this article

Hey, my name is Alex Colgan and I’m the head writer at Leap Motion. I’m here to suggest changes and contribute resources towards improving the quality of this article.

I’m fully on board with Wikipedia’s contributions guidelines, including those related to conflict of interest. This means that I won’t make any direct edits. Instead, my aim is to work with impartial editors who can make NPOV contributions and hopefully make it better! If you’d like to help me, please let me know. Along with my user talk page, you can also contact me at acolgan@leapmotion.com.

— Alex Colgan, head writer at Leap Motion 14:57, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

What changes do you suggest? Gandydancer (talk) 12:51, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Hey Gandydancer, I've made a list of suggested changes below with full references. I can definitely draft something if necessary, but thought it best to take it slow and get community feedback first. At the very least, I hope that the references I've collected will prove useful.

History

The original motivations behind the technology's creation are important to note. This 2013 article from Inc. covers the early days in more detail, including how David Holz first developed the tech when he was working at NASA. [1]

As well, this piece in Popular Science goes into way more depth, and might serve as a decent resource. [2]

Hardware Partnerships

The ASUS computers have shipped. [3]

The HP devices have also been available for quite some time. [4]

A clarification: The tech is embedded in one type of laptop, the Envy 17 Leap Motion SE. The keyboard is a standalone device, which can be obtained separately, or packaged with 9 other computers. Not sure if the manufacturer's site is a good resource [5]; these articles from Engadget and Fast Company article might help [6] [7].

Would it make sense to show a picture of one of the keyboards?

Retail Partnerships

The device is also available in South Africa (Incredible Connection), Germany and Switzerland (Media Markt), and Japan. Sources: [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] (note that 11 is a rehash of the initial press release)

Airspace

Third-party media coverage of note:

• Google Earth integration: [13] [14] [15]

• Freeform (clay sculpting app released by Leap Motion last year): [16] [17]

• New York Times: [18]

• Muse (a music app created jointly by musician BT and Dr. Richard Boulanger of the Berklee College of Music): [19]

Note: the Airspace Store now has over 200 apps [20]

Technology

There's a good article on SparkFun where they tore apart one of our early revision models [21].

"Leap Motion initially distributed thousands of units to developers interested in creating applications for the device" (cut "who are") should probably go in the History section. The preceding and following sentences ("Leap Motion CEO Michael Buckwald told CNET:" and "The Leap Motion controller was first shipped in July, 2013") ought to be cut altogether.

Beyond these edits, the system's near-zero latency (commented in [22]) and its sub-millimetre precision (this 2013 study [23] concluded that it has an overall average accuracy of 0.7mm) might be worth mentioning.

Developer Community

The Inc.com article I indicated earlier mentions that the dev community was around 40,000 in May 2013 [24]. It's also perhaps worth noting that devs have used the device to create art, music, robotic controls, medical interfaces, games, etc. I've included some specific examples below.

NASA scientists using the device to remotely control a six-legged, one-ton Athlete rover located at the space agency's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California: [25]

TedCas has been using the tech as a sterile (i.e. hands-free, no contamination) natural user interface for operating room imaging systems, under trial in 6 hospitals and two medical research centers around the world. (The link is to a TedCas press release; sufficient source?) [26]

Here's an academic paper about its use as a touchless image navigation system in dental surgery: [27]

In the Forbes article I linked earlier [28], there's a good wrapup of the LEAP AXLR8R (that's how they style it; I notice that the original VentureBeat citation runs with lower-case, while Forbes gets it right). These include:

• Diplopia, a tech startup using the Leap Motion Controller and Oculus Rift for lazy eye sufferers (also profiled here [29] [30])

• MotionSavvy, which is developing a Leap Motion-equipped tablet case that can interpret American Sign Language (see also [31] [32])

• Visual Touch Therapy is gamifying physical therapy for stroke victims: [33]

• Mirror Training is developing an interface for controlling robotic arms [34]

V2 Tracking

We've had a public beta of our V2 tracking out since May that has been picked up in a couple of news outlets. It has greatly improved occlusion robustness, massively improved resistance to ambient light, and fingerbone-level tracking. Would this fit in the technology section, perhaps? (Forbes again, plus Wired.) [35] [36]

— Alex Colgan, head writer at Leap Motion, 18:37, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Have you checked with our guidelines to be certain that all of these sources are acceptable? Gandydancer (talk) 23:14, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Having reread the guidelines, a few of them could probably be cut, or at least qualified as per Wikipedia:Third-party_sources. Below is a review of the various sources referenced:

• The posts on Engadget, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, and The Verge are written by staff writers who routinely cover technology stories and have editorial oversight. I’m unsure about The Next Web (19), though I’ve seen it used as a reference on other Wikipedia articles.

• Popular Science, Wired, Inc., and Fast Company are long-standing magazines. Articles posted online also have editorial oversight.

• As I mentioned, the HP site is probably not a reliable source under the guidelines, though I think the claim being made is unexceptional and uncontroversial (i.e. a particular product line exists). The Engadget article that I linked could be used instead.

• On a closer reading, 8, 9, and 10 aren't fully up to standards; sorry about that. Ditto for SparkFun (21).

• 11 is a press release, so it could be used if the connection to the source is made clear.

• 12 is an article under Bloomberg Businessweek and can be counted as a reliable source.

• Under the Google Earth item, 14 is a Forbes blog (op-ed) and 15 is first-party Google documentation, so it may be best to scrap both. 13 is an article from Fast Company and covers it well.

• The SIGGRAPH link (17) is an abstract written by the engineers presenting at the conference who head up the Freeform project. Given the source and the medium, is it usable if the connection to the source is made clear?

• One of the Forbes links (collectively under 20, 28, and 35) is written by Anthony Wing Kosner, who is a tech contributor to Forbes. I noticed an “Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own” disclaimer.

• 23 and 27 are academic studies published in peer-reviewed journals.

• 26 is a press release, so it could be used if the connection to the source is made clear.

• 30 is from a local San Francisco ABC news affiliate, a news organization with editorial oversight.

I'd appreciate your thoughts on these sources and where the line should be drawn in these cases. — Alex Colgan, head writer at Leap Motion, 02:46, 14 August 2014 (UTC)