Sixth Sense Could Make All Your SCI-FI Fantasies Come True

A futuristic digital technology the likes of which we’ve seen in several Sci-Fi movies over the years has now become a reality. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab are working on a revolutionary prototype called “Sixth Sense” which is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.

The SixthSense prototype comprises a pocket projector, mirror and camera worn in a pendant-like mobile device. Both the projector and the camera are connected to a mobile computing device in the user’s pocket. The system projects information onto the surfaces and physical objects around us, making any surface into a digital interface; the camera recognizes and tracks both the user’s hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision-based techniques. SixthSense uses simple computer-vision techniques to process the video-stream data captured by the camera and follows the locations of colored markers on the user’s fingertips In addition, the software interprets the data into gestures to use for interacting with the projected application interfaces. SixthSense also supports multi-touch and multi-user interaction.

In layman’s terms, with the Sixth sense in hand, you can walk around like Tom Cruise in Minority Report, and get all the info you could possibly need about anything you are looking at with a full display report projected onto the object itself. The object in question could even be a person and you would be able to get information on him or her at first sight. By merely using hand gestures you could get mundane things done like a magician without going through the actual process. For example, You could draw a watch dial on your hand using your fingertip and the time will be digitally displayed instantaneously. You could make a picture frame in the air, and a photo would be immediately taken of the view in front of you. Similarly, you just have to look at the books in a library or the items displayed in your grocery store to get all the info you would need to make an informed decision about the product. By looking at a flight ticket, you would be informed of any delays or changes in flight plans. And what’s more, you will be able to build this dream “machine” all by yourself!

“I am trying to make this tech available to people, and I will provide all the open source software for SixthSense starting next month,” The Economic Times quoted Pranab Mistry, the the MIT grad student behind Sixth Sense as saying. “I notice that it’s hard to for these kind of things to market in some sense. . . because I don’t want this to comply with some of kind of corporate policy. People will be able to make their own hardware. I will give them instructions how to make it. And also provide them key software… give them basic key software layers… they will be able to build their own applications. They will be able to modify base level and do anything.”