The Retrospective

Imagine a device that can comprehend what you are holding, identify specific hand gestures, and even decode the physical make-up of any given object. At this February’s TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) convention, Pattie Maes and brainy MIT student Pranav Mistry debuted a working prototype that can do all of the above. Technology is now free to move about the cabin in previously unimagined directions.

The annual TED convention is one of the biggest networking events of the year. Hosted in Long Beach, it gives the average person 18 minutes to verbalize his or her life’s work (commonly termed “the talk of your life”), or to cast an amazing idea to avidly listening ears. This year Maes and Mistry created quite a stir amongst the convention’s 50 speakers and guests and received an impressive (and atypical) standing ovation for their work.

The prototype for the sixth sense was built from an ordinary web cam and a battery-powered 3M projector with an attached mirror — all connected to an Internet-enabled mobile device. This device, which costs less than $350 to create from scratch, allows the user to project information from the mobile device onto any surface — walls, the body of another person, airline tickets, the daily newspaper, your hand, or even your wrist should you need a wristwatch in a pinch.

It’s commonly accepted that humans have five tactile senses that gather information from our surroundings to help us understand what’s happening around us. With Maes and Mistry’s innovative way of viewing our environment we can access a teeming pool of virtual information and organically interpret and project it before us to digitally create the sixth sense. Moreover, the information we project is fully interactive. Mistry demonstrates how a user can play with sixth sense’s information by using multi-colored pen caps on his fingertips. The device interprets the caps on his fingers then casts the colors onto the wall with paintbrush-like strokes, allowing Mistry to draw and move elaborate pictures in the space before him.

This technology opens up a whole new world for exploration and would revolutionize our daily routines. You might open up a newspaper and see live video cast upon the sheet, or browse books at a local bookstore, unsure as to which to choose until you display the book cover to sixth sense and are provided with a projection of amazon.com’s average book rating. With so much technology being replicated to the point of monotony, I’m sure that this will cause quite a stir.

Source: http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/#ABOUT

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