I’ve often wondered what kind of technology my 5-year-old daughter will be using when she grows up. The following is proof that I have a feeble imagination. But the folks at MIT Media Lab make up for what I lack.
What if you no longer needed a cellphone, computer, computer mouse, iPad, digital camera or any number of other devices. What if you replaced a whole stable of hardware with a small wearable gizmo around your neck that interacted with your hand gestures.
A lot of us recall those scenes of Tom Cruise waving his hands to operate a computer in the 2002 film “Minority Report.” But MIT’s device, even as a prototype, does things even Steven Spielberg couldn’t have imagined. It allows you to:
- Use a blank sheet of paper, wall or any blank surface as a computer screen.
- Lift words and pictures from a printed page onto a blank sheet with a mere “pinch” of your fingers.
- Transfer information from that blank paper to a real computer screen, also with a “pinch.”
- Watch movies on a blank sheet of paper. Watch news videos on a printed newspaper.
- Play video games on – yes, also on a blank sheet of paper.
- Take a digital photo – merely by framing your hands like a movie director.
- See your flight status projected onto your airline boarding pass, or the price of a good, or see the latest temperatures dancing on a newspaper weather page.
- See a person’s name and biographical information displayed on his shirt the instant you encounter him. No more forgetting people’s names!
- Dial a phone number – on the bare palm of your hand.
- Check your wristwatch – while not even wearing one.
The technology is called SixthSense, and it’s billed as bringing “intangible, digital information into the tangible world.” And it’s built from what basically are bits of junk from Radio Shack.
Says MIT Ph.D candidate Pranav Mistry, “I think that integrating information onto everyday objects will not only help us to get rid of the digital divide between these two worlds, but will also help us, in some way, to stay human.”
Remembering this is a prototype, you have to ask: How real is all this, or rather, will it ever be? It seems like magic. But then, an iPhone would have seemed like magic 15 years ago.
Check it out here.
And if you want to be really amazed, be sure to see SixthSense in action in this video.
My daughter’s gonna have to get one of these.
This post is categorized in: Gaming, Social Media
This does seem like magic, but very useful magic. It really does blur the line between the real and the virtual.
Getting this into people’s hands (so to speak) in an open, hackable way could really open the door to some cool applications. This could be great for people with limited dexterity or mobility.
> See a person’s name and biographical information displayed on his shirt the instant you encounter him. No more forgetting people’s names!
That’s a killer application! People that I don’t know come up to me all the time at conferences, talk to me as if we are good friends, and I struggle to figure out who the heck they are!
Meanwhile, I anxiously anticipate the day when I won’t actually have to put on clothes, and I will be able to change whatever I am “wearing” wherever I am, with just a hand gesture.
TSA should really like that because I will also be completely naked by simply making some other hand gesture. It’s so much easier and exciting than looking at our full-body scan in black and white from a distance. =)
Ah, SixSense, I remember seeing this video in Kathy Gil’s Evolution & Trends class and I thought that this technology is soon approaching. I agree with this type of technology it can transform our daily living and change our behaviors, but at the same time I think its a long time coming. I recently needed a boarding pass from my airline thinking that I can reduce my carbon footprint by using the download boarding pass image on my mobile phone (rather than print). As I smiled with my ‘intelligent’ decision to flash my phone to the TSA agent, they proceeded to make me wait even LONGER because their scanner wasn’t working. I then was also held up at the gate because airline phone scanner didn’t seem to work either and they ended up having to print my boarding pass. Good intentions but unfortunately from this experience, I’ll have to settle for being ‘old-school’ for a bit longer.
This does seem like it is so far fetched but it feels like people have been perfecting virtual reality for some time now. Perhaps what is making it so challenging is that the lines between virtual reality and actual reality is so fuzzy. I’m still waiting on my micro chipped organic half and half to tell my refrigerator to tell my smartphone that I am running low.
Lynne, you’re right, SixthSense has been kicking around in blogs and such for a year or more. I wrote the post because my wife saw a demonstration of it recently. It’s probably nowhere close to a real, marketable technology, but it sure is an amazing thing to contemplate.
I’ve also been following this technology for several months and I’m a bit curious as to why there isn’t any talk of a large technology manufacturer like Apple or Samsung working on a consumer product like this.
I agree with Jeff though, offering the platform up for everyone to build off of is going to open up a lot of new opportunities that couldn’t be explored by a single technology manufacturer. I remember reading somewhere that Pav privately licensed the technology and I see he is setting up shop to sell the components on his site as a DIY kit for further development by hobbyists (this sounds like an awesome toy for an emerging markets class!).
If I understand right, one aspect that is still challenging is packing enough computing power into a wearable that it can quickly process the video from the camera and output it to the projector.
I’ve also been seeing some interesting examples of people hacking the Kinect to use as a gesture input interface. I think as these technologies become more prevalent and commercially available it will open up new opportunities not just with HCI, but new forms of performance and storytelling.
A colleague recently pointed me to this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo
that is mostly about data visualization but uses some production techniques to layer the viz into ‘real’ space. I think this is a great example of a new kind of storytelling that might be possible with gesture interfaces.
My boys are three and five and they have mastered our ipod touches. They tolerate the trackpad on the laptop, but I’m pretty sure they think the mouse is a sub-standard interface. I don’t blame them. If I could put our iMac on my lap and interact with it that way, I would.
Back in my Atari 2600 days, I had a handheld joystick that was not attached to a base. It had a four position mercury switch that was activated when you tilted the joystick in your hand. It was a cool idea but terrible in implementation. It’s amazing how far we’ve come from freeing ourselves from the proxy devices and to allow us to start interacting with stuff.
Really interesting post Greg – thanks for putting it up! Seems like only a matter of time before SixthSense becomes a (virtual) reality.
I find it interesting that Pranav Mistry says SixthSense will “get rid of the digital divide between these two worlds, but will also help us, in some way, to stay human.” Others might say quite differently — that this turns us into machines. I wonder how Marshall McLuhan would respond to SixthSense — as in this case the technology can really become an extension of ourselves.
And the medium is the message which is the medium. Or something like that.
The most surprising thing about SixthSense might be the projected cost of manufacturing. If I recall correctly, the prototype costs about $350 to build — quite a bit less than you might expect for a seemingly “futuristic” technology. By comparison, building an Apple iPhone costs just a little less than it initially retails for: about $200. This relatively low start-up cost bodes well for this technology’s future, since it fits a consumer trend of lower costs and — subsequently — higher user-adoption rates. Does that mean we’ll all be dialing on our hands in two years? Probably not. But the projected costs does make this kind of device much more financially viable.
When I first saw SixthSense I thought wow, we are witnessing the future. The Tom Cruise Monitory Report computer… big deal. Then I started to think about the product more. There is no way that people will wear a giant camera and projector around their neck. Until the technology is condensed down to something like a necklace it has no hope. Also, mobile devices can provide the same content that is available through Sixth Sense. Will people want to trade in their cell phone so they can type on their hand?
Most people won’t wear their Bluetooth in public; will they ever wear a giant tech necklace?
I always feel like the last person to hear about the latest and greatest technology. Sixth Sense may be from TEDIndia’s 2009 conference (yes, over a year ago and I just now heard about it), but it seems like I may have actually been looking 10 years in the future (2020?? Yikes). While I never doubted someone could come up with something similar to what I saw in Minority Report, it just seemed so farther away. While the creator of Sixth Sense explains the basics of it in a very easy-to-understand way for the non-tech savvy folks like myself, I can’t help but be in complete wonder of how it does what it does.
Yes, I would like to lift words and pictures from a printed page with a mere “pinch” of my fingers. Yes, I would like to use a blank piece of paper to play video games! It all sounds like magic and who doesn’t like magic, really? However, I agree with Evan that I wouldn’t wear a Bluetooth headset in public let alone wear this gadget dangling from my neck. But what if it really took the place of our cell phones? Doesn’t most everyone carry a cell phone on them 24/7? Of course the cell phone isn’t always visible and dangling from your neck, but I could see this Sixth Sense or something similar to it becoming more of a “norm” much like cell phones are. I’m not an early adopter of new technology, but I’m sure lots of people would want to give it a shot.
This is a very interesting and eye-opening technology for sure. Thanks for sharing!
Sixthsense is a great demonstration of wearable devices and context-aware computing made possible through the ubiquity of data in the cloud. Practically, many of the same tasks could be securely undertaken today or in the near future with a mobile phone, a number of which today are equipped with micro projectors. Augmented reality on mobile is creating a wealth of informaiton layers on top of real world objects and places. It is going to dramatically change our experience of the world within the next few years. For one, I am looking forward to pointing my phone camera at real world objects and seeing ratings, price comparisons and experiences my friends may have had with the object. A host of existing services will coalesce under brands like Facebook, Bing, Google and very soon augmented reality scenarios like sixth sense will happen on the mobile. Perhaps companies like Misrosoft will enable the transposing of information on one surface to another — afterall, these scenarios have been in Microsoft’s vision videos for a number of years.
The trajectory of mobile phone technology (soon they will have 3D capabilieis) suggests to me that wearable technologies like Sixthsense will have to demonstrate remarkable utility and convenience to get a toehold in the market.
As an aside, on Friday evening I was in a pub in Bellevue for a company Christmas party. An Xbox gaming console and Kinect were hooked up to a 52-inch television and I found myself in dance-offs with the regulars. Simply put, everyone could play; there were no barriers to entry. The following day I smirked when I walked past a sales rack full of Wii fitness products featuring strap-on sensors, fitness boards and models holding controllers; how antiquaited! I marvelled at what a leap in gaming Kinect was over the Wii, which we had marvelled at just a few years earlier.
The Sixthsense video is a reminder of the computing revolution we are in middle of. It piques the imagination and hints at the many new scenarios that will be enabled as data becomes ubiquitous through the cloud and natural user inteface matures.
What entices me most about new innovative technology and innovation is the thought process itself. The thought that we would need a particular object or technology. This thought process is something that lies underneath all markets and businesses. While the timeframe for creation of innovation was 5 to 10 years a few years ago, since so many new things are being developed this process has been shortened to 6 to 8 months at maximum.No one wants to invest in a product that is going to take two years to be in the market because chances are that product would probably not be required anymore.
This process is what is causing most industries shift their set ways dramatically which is leading to large changes in the way businesses are handled. Even in times like these, when money is tight and small loans are high risk, it is not surprising to see a business pattern, that is short term, high risk and with an estimated growth rate as high as 1500% succeed beyond imagination. We call it the digital age, where everything is technology based, fast paced and risky but if you really look closely it is an opportunity to grow beyond the means of your advantages.
This post reminds me of a science fiction book I read in Kathy’s evolutions course called The Rainbow’s End by Verne Vinge. Written in 2006, The Rainbow’s End is a prospective fiction that predicts that by 2025 we will be living in a world of augmented reality – where we would not necessarily need devices to navigate, create, and share via the web. A contact lens would take care of it all, much like the description in this post.
When I first picked up Rainbow’s End I thought the technology seemed pretty over-the-top, at least for 2025. Then one day I was browsing the UW website and discovered that not only was this kind of technology feasible, our distinguished institution was already working on it three years ago. You can read more about it at http://uwnews.org/article.asp?articleID=39094.
As an early adopter of new technologies I am enthusiastic to read about the SixthSense and the possibilities it could bring in terms of efficiency and communication in times when carrying a mobile device is inconvenient or impossible. At the same time, I can’t help but be weary of what this could mean for our personal communications and real-life relationships. There are already studies that show our memories have gotten less receptive over the years as a result of the “conveniences” provided by modern technology. Will this next step make us even lazier in terms of building new relationships and actually engaging in live conversation?
I noticed that one of the features of the new technology was the ability to see a person’s name and biographical information upon sight. Our manners are already at risk (texting a the dinner table is now a norm) and I fear that technology that removes the need to remember one’s name is only going to aid in our growing sense of laziness and discontent with the need to retain any information about one another, or anything else for that matter. If we can access the internet via a contact lens device will that mean our conversations would be secretly infiltrated by Facebooking?
Technology like this is like that of a dream world, but I can’t help but wonder if by making such technological advances we are actually hindering advancement in our own intelligence as well as common courtesy. I hope not.
Rather than creating a sixth sense I often wonder to what extent these types of technologies are actually dulling our real senses. Yes, they are very cool and one can only imagine all of the possible applications but what are the downsides to using these things in everyday life? With increasing externalization of many of the functions that are brains provide us are we dulling those abilities? Will parts of our brain atrophy? Will creativity suffer? Will our brains not get enough exercise?
My whole life I have been known to have a great dense of direction. I have always been able to get from point A to point B, remember landmarks and how to get places and have been spatially aware. I have found that the more I rely on my iphone to get me places the less aware I have become. I have lived in Seattle for almost two years now and find myself looking at my iphone to get me places I have gone repeatedly when in the past I would have known a new city like the back of my hand by now. I feel like I have become less spatially aware. Maybe it’s not important and maybe I am just getting old but I feel that relying on technology like this has not been good for me. However, as I get even older it might be a godsend.