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In the rapid-fire pace of technological change, new interfaces are revealing new ways to see, browse and book travel. One of the latest innovations is the LeapMotion controller, which allows hand gestures to control home PC interactions. This means that users are able to change the way they interact with their screens - no more mouse, no more keyboard.
The company markets itself as a controller that "tracks both hands and all 10 fingers with pinpoint precision and incredible speed. That wide-open space between you and your computer is now yours—to play, create and explore. Reach into another world without actually touching anything."
While this new user interface comes with some disadvantages - such as potential long-term usage fatigue - the novelty is nonetheless inspiring experimentation.
The limitations here are primarily that not every program is able to take advantage of these hand gestures. Even so, a few enterprising companies are off to the races, experimenting with this new way of interacting with computers. One of these companies is Amadeus IT Group, which has dedicated some time to creating an app for the LeapMotion app store, known as Airspace. The app was created in partnership with UK firm Hickup.
The Travel Seeker allows would-be-travelers to explore the globe in a similar fashion to the new KLM app (covered here), with the main difference being the usage of the hand to direct the cursor.
While booking can't be completed at the moment, and origins are limited to North America, this first crack at a hand-gesture controlled travel application is quite interesting.
One can easily imagine a robust tool down the line that would allow users to drill down into a city and even begin exploring a city via StreetView in the interface, walking around booking reservations at restaurants, tagging attractions to be placed on their itinerary, and then zooming out to purchase the full package with one click. Not in the immediate future, but the immersive nature of these emerging technologies make this a very real - and exciting - possibility.
Innovation Engineer Francois Montegut created a live demo video of his interactions with Travel Seeker: