Every so often in human history one person shares a vision so compelling and mind shattering that we take pause. Pranav Mistry is an exciting, visionary who’s having a dramatic impact on sixth sense mobile augmented reality.
MIT’s Pranav Mistry, the inventor of “sixth sense mobile technology” made a presentation at the TEDIndia 2009 meeting. Since then, interest in his work, boosted by a number of hugely popular YouTube videos, has skyrocketed.
A grad student with the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT, he caused a storm with his creation of sixth sense technology. He says that the movies “Robocop” and “Minority Report” gave him the inspiration to create his view of a world not dominated by computers, digital information and human robots, but one where computers and other digital devices enhance people’s enjoyment of the physical world.
For $350, Mistry assembled a pocket projector, camera and mirror worn like a pendant around your neck connected to a mobile computing device in your pocket–nothing more than a stripped-down smartphone with wires connected to your fingers acting as “visual tracking fiducials.” His open-sourced software allows sixth sense users to connect digital and mixed human realities.
Here’s a short video of him demonstrating uses of sixth sense mobile augmented reality.
Sixth Sense Mobile Augmented Reality’s Impact
This visionary has a Web 4.0 view of human and machine interactions. He talks about augmenting the physical world with digital information using hand gestures to interact with information. “‘sixth sense integrates digital information into the physical world and its objects, making the entire world your computer.” He sees sixth sense not changing human habits but causing computers and other machines to adapt to human needs.
Digital Objects Enhance Human CreativityMistry believes that social networking sites keep us separated from the true reality of our physical world and the importance of remaining human.
He positively believes in the benefits of his invention for those who are physically hindered such as the blind and deaf.
Sixth Sense Mobile Phone CallThe mobile devices in our pockets transmit and receive voice and data anywhere and to anyone via the mobile Internet.
Think of a time in the future when people won’t need Twitter or Facebook to connect digitally. Instead, people will communicate in real time, co-creating and sharing their realities.
The possibilities with mobile and other wireless devices are enormous from group collaboration worldwide on personal and business projects to wireless health care applications. Mistry says: “What we can do is not important…what we should do is more important.”
Digital Gestures
Mistry further demonstrates sixth sense mobile technology. He shows how his software recognizes three kinds of gestures, including multi-touch similar to the iPhones and free hand gestures, taking pictures with your hands and projecting them on a wall later for viewing and editing.
In this final video clip, Mistry, speaking at the TEDIndia event, discusses reducing the digital divide, how sixth sense is useful for practical business tasks like accounting, and how drawing and writing are easily transferred from paper to a personal computer. sixth sense can even draw a working watch on your wrist.
sixth sense mobile newspaperMistry also shows a clip-on device that turns a piece of paper into a video display and how the computer projector and MID (mobile Internet device) is useful for comparison shopping or deciding whether to buy a book in a bookstore. Suddenly, augmented reality becomes practical for day-to-day tasks.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes.
Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the “Sixth Sense” wearable tech, and “Lost” producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery.
Thanks to Nageena Vijayan a MobileBeyond reader, for informing me about Pranav Mistry and sixth sense.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Email | RSS | More
