Sixth Sense
Sunday, November 8, 2009 at 2:22AM When I attended the last TED conference in Long Beach in February 2009, Patricia Maes and Pranav Mistry unveiled a touch sensitive device that allows users to project information onto practically any surface, including the human hand. In their own words: "The SixthSense prototype is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The hardware components are coupled in a pendant like mobile wearable device. Both the projector and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user’s pocket. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and physical objects around us to be used as interfaces; while the camera recognizes and tracks user's hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques."
The technology is very impressive. Here is a TED video of Patti Maes explaining this important new invention.
Reader Comments (1)
I had a conversation recently with Pranav and he showed me some UI design work that he did prior to the Media Lab, while he was at Microsoft. He explained to me that school children in India (and likely other developing nations) often have to use computers in groups -- one child steers with the mouse and the others either try to influence the one in control, or all too often simply disengage. Pranav developed an ingenious bit of code -- a driver -- that allowed multiple mice to be connected to a machine simultaneously. Suddenly a personal computer becomes a group computer, enabling input from several children.
I'm always impressed by small gestures of ingenuity. It's amazing how Pranav managed to help increase the usability of common PCs several times over by writing a relatively small piece of software. He's very clever.
Ian