Leap Motion previews its gesture control capabilities with Windows 8

By Meghan McDonough Published July 22, 2013

Check out our full review of the Leap Motion gesture controller.

We’re learning more about the capabilities of the Leap Motion controller today thanks to a video posted on the company’s YouTube channel showcasing how the Leap controls the Windows environment. The 3D gesture-based Leap controller was originally slated to go on sale to the public in May but got pushed back to July for additional testing. The video posted today shows a hand commanding the screen to surf the Web, point, click, and rotate hand-drawn images.

Recommended Videos

The Leap Motion controller will be released to developers in June for beta testing and will bring hands-free computing to Windows 7 and 8. The company has also stated that a video showing the controller interfacing with Mac OS X is on the way. The goal is to allow users to manipulate a screen without having to touch it. While we’ve seen gesture-based controllers in the past, the Leap Motion looks very promising.

When the Leap was delayed, CEO Michael Buckwald said, “Ultimately, the only way we felt 100 percent confident we could deliver a truly magical product that would do justice to this new form of interaction, was to push the date so we would have more time for a larger, more diverse beta test.” It’s a bold move by any CEO to admit that a product needs more time for testing and we were glad to see that the company was willing to delay such a unique product until it got it right.

Now that it’s almost there, have a look at the video below showing the different ways Leap Motion allows users to control their computers without a keyboard, mouse, or even a touchscreen.

Check out the video below and let us know what you think. Would you control your computer using only gestures?

Meghan McDonough

Former Contributor

Meghan J. McDonough is a Chicago-based purveyor of consumer technology and music. She previously wrote for LAPTOP Magazine…

Computing

Microsoft is retiring the Together Mode in Teams in favor of something cleaner and simpler

Teams is retiring Together Mode for layouts people may actually use

Computer, Electronics, Laptop

Microsoft Teams is retiring one of its more recognizable meeting features, and it might be for the best. The company announced that Together Mode is going away in Teams as Microsoft is shooting towards a simpler set of meeting layouts.

To recall, Together Mode was introduced during the pandemic-era video call boom, placing participants inside shared virtual environments such as auditoriums or classrooms. It was a cute idea at the time, but it never became the everyday meeting view for most people.

Computing

Experts are worried that smarter AI gets, the dumber we might become

Experts say chatbots can help research, but leaning on them too hard risks outsourcing the work that builds intelligence

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during the Uncapped podcast in June 2025.

AI can now answer questions so quickly that the search itself can feel optional. That convenience worries the Royal Observatory Greenwich, which has warned that instant AI answers can weaken the curiosity, scrutiny, and source-checking behind real knowledge.

The risk hides inside the usefulness. Chatbots can help people test ideas, move faster, and find new angles, but a finished response can also cut users off from the messy trail that makes learning stick. When that happens, information arrives without the struggle that turns it into judgment.

Computing

Miss the old PC days? This website lets you experience Wikipedia like it’s Windows XP

This XP-style Wikipedia explorer turns online research into a nostalgia trip, while showing how much browsing changes when search takes a back seat

File, Webpage, Person

Wikipedia has an unofficial new front door, and it looks like a desktop from a very specific era of family PCs, school labs, and chunky blue title bars.

Developer Sami Smith has built a browser-based Windows XP Wikipedia explorer that turns categories into folders and articles into documents. It’s playful, slightly inefficient, and more interesting than another AI search box bolted onto the web.