If the touchscreen mortally wounded the humble computer mouse then a new device is poised to deliver the coup de grâce. The LEAP enables the sort of 3D motion control the Kinect first made possible for your body – but on a much finer and smaller scale. The LEAP, which is the size of a flash drive, can track your hand and finger motions in 3D space.

Amazingly this small peripheral creates an interaction domain of 8 cubic feet. It can precisely detect motions on a scale of 1/100th of a millimetre, so it can distinguish your fingers from your thumb and it can even detect objects like pens. What's even more astounding is the cheap price of the Leap: it's only $69.99. And unlike the Microsoft Kinect, the LEAP is customisable straight out of the box. This reconfigurability lets you add your waves and secret signals to the repertoire of gestures the device can recognise. Want to air-fistbump to open Firefox? Go right ahead!

Once the Kinect was hacked we saw innovative uses in everywhere from art, advertising and even medicine. The creators of LEAP hope to see similar innovative repurposing of the humble but powerful device. The developers promise a whole new way of interacting with computers, and if they stick to their promises of making the system customisable to non-coders, that may not prove to be such a bold boast. Seeing a whole new grammar of gesture control has us really excited.