Last week, Leap Motion — the company that’s making virtual reality feel less virtual by the day — released a new demo, Weightless, that lets you play around in zero gravity and form black holes with your hands.
Leap Motion makes a sensor that tracks and reproduces your hands in VR. Co-founder David Holz is something of a technological prophet: His enthusiasm for the future of the medium is unsurpassed, and he’s able to imbue audiences with his excitement. His company has already created a few mind-boggling demos, like Geometric and Blocks, and Holz has hinted at bigger projects in the works.
Now, with the new Weightless demo, Leap Motion is enabling VR headset owners to play around in space. The scene could be a wing of the International Space Station: Players are in a pod, in orbit, overlooking Earth. Various projectiles are suspended nearby, with targets at the other end of the pod. Players can pick up and throw the balls and discs at the targets, gradually breaking them down. In addition, they can activate thrusters, redirecting these objects in whichever direction they’d like.
Leap Motion’s hand-tracking expertise is on full display in this demo; picking up and controlling the objects seems as intuitive as picking up and controlling objects in real life. Again, the company is doing well to make VR less virtual and more physical and natural.
