Yes, another reference to how Minority Report is helping shape the future of technology and society.

If you’ve been in the dark for a little while, a new stage in UI/mouse/stylus/pointing at stuff is about to be set with Leap Motion:

Historically it first started with the track ball, invented in 1952 by Tom Cranston, Fred Longstaff, and Kenyon Taylor for a Royal Canadian military project, which used a five-pin bowling ball for the track.

From there we developed the first mouse prototype in 1963 by Douglas Engelbar and Bill English. A German company then invented the Rollkugel a roller ball mouse in 1968. The roller ball mouse got some lasers, evolved without a tail. Wacom gave us some cool-ass stylus and tablets. Then the iphone dropped giving us a great jump in touch technology.

Que Tom.

Now we have Leap, a fusion of Magneto and Harry Potter.

Not only can you interact, manipulate, game, and draw with Leap. You can also do some other really cool shit:

Like a navigate a mini-yacht in the pool.

Or take for-fucking-ever to pick up a foam ball:

The leap is 100x more accurate with signature reading that the Kinect.

And can differentiate between your fingers and a stylus held in your fingers.

Yes were not on par with the genius of stark industries, or won’t be chasing down criminals with any precogs. But it will be exciting to see how leap changes the face of UI in next few years, and what implications this might have for the future application and tools used in design.