SIXTH SENSE
How does one perceive and see things around? To begin with, it is a silly question. We have our five sense organs for it, and wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were a sixth sense too? Today seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling are not the only information required to decide the credibility of an object. Why else would ‘Google’ be so popular! But you cannot always ‘log on’ when you need information and knowledge about the object in front of you. That’s where Sixth Sense comes in.
Sixth Sense- it connects the digital world to the physical one. The device (which can be worn around the neck) consist a projector, a mirror, a camera connected to the cell-phone and colored caps (like rings) which are put on the tips of thumb and the forefinger. 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 software program processes the video stream data captured by the camera and tracks the locations of the colored markers (visual tracking fiducials) at the tip of the user’s fingers using simple computer-vision techniques. The movements and arrangements of these fiducials are interpreted into gestures that act as interaction instructions for the projected application interfaces. The maximum number of tracked fingers is only constrained by the number of unique fiducials, thus SixthSense also supports multi-touch and multi-user interaction. It is just like watching search results only without a required screen!
The Sixth Sense device caters to a variety of needs, like map navigation. The fingers would allow zooming in an out of the map layout and help search the exact location. If you buy some stuff, it will pop up all the information available about it, so you get the best deal. The drawing tool helps draw on any surface using the fingers. It recognizes free hand gestures too. Using hands ‘framing’ gestures, will click pictures and then later you can flip through those pictures. SixthSense also lets the user draw icons or symbols in the air using the movement of the index finger and recognizes those symbols as interaction instructions. For example, drawing a magnifying glass symbol takes the user to the map application or drawing and ‘@’ symbol lets the user check his mail. The SixthSense system also augments physical objects the user is interacting with by projecting more information about these objects projected on them. For example, a newspaper can show live video news or dynamic information can be provided on a regular piece of paper. The gesture of drawing a circle on the user’s wrist projects an analog watch.
The mind behind this intriguing device is Pranav Mistry, an Indian Student pursuing PhD in the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT’s media lab. His work in detail can be viewed at www.pranavmistry.com
~Naineet
