By Dana Sedgwick

Remember that one scene in Minority Report where Tom Cruise puts on a pair of gloves and begins to control a room full of screens with the flick of his wrist, the point of his finger and the wave of his arm? Well turns out that distant future isn’t so distant… it’s now.

Officially shipping out today, Leap Motion calls itself a “tiny device with a huge idea.” It is tiny… only three inches long. And what it does is extraordinary… enabling you to use your computer like Cruise does in the “future” (only without the fancy gloves… take that hot shot).

If you want to see exactly what this entails, check out the product description here. And while you recover from your “that’s way too cool” brain freeze, ease on over to their app store called Airspace, which also launches today.

Given the generous amount of apps available at launch, the technology has clearly been in the hands of developers for quite some time and we’re excited to see that music has been an area of focus. There are currently 15 music-centric apps available with Leap Motion – these range from whimsical to practical… one teaches piano, a few motion-based midi controllers (AirMidi, AeroMIDI, & Geco MIDI), and even an air-based drum machine.

You may also recognize the entrancing Oscilloscoop, already popular on iPad and created by Snibbe Studio (check out our recent Q&A with app developer Scott Snibbe).

The truth is that for musical apps, this is the only next logical step. Motion is entwined in music, giving life to it. A pianist doesn’t merely tap at keys, a DJ doesn’t just stand still and scratch a record, and most of us cannot listen to Michael Jackson without the uncontrollable urge to pull a Napoleon Dynamite (those are my moves, don’t hate).

The digital revolution in music programming has given us a lot of capability and diversity in sound manipulation, but until now, has limited the ways we control that manipulation to knobs, buttons, faders, levers, etc.

Music made by free human motion means the creation of music that is closer to human emotion. A violinist knows this, a drummer certainly knows this… and yes, everyone who plays the theremin, we know you know this too.

Anyway, go check out the Airspace Store and put the Leap Motion Controller on your 2013 wish list.

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