SixthSense - new technology to prevail cellphone market worldwide
Do you know Pranav Mistry? He is a mere 28-year-old research assistant at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, but has become famous of late owing to his demonstration of what one interface might look like at the TEDIndia conference taking place this week in Mysore, India, about three hours west of Bangalore.
What is the interface all about? Well, as per him, copious numbers of Indians had bought their first mobile phones prior to they had their first experiences with personal computers. He is confident that the majority of them might also bounce keyboards and mice and go straight to more intuitive and interactive interfaces. Am I clear?
In his own words, the interface is known as SixthSense, and it makes use of a camera and projector brought together in a pendant that is worn around the neck. What is more, his trial product, and the software that powers it, works in tandem with smartphones and turns walls, sheets of paper and other surfaces into screens for the sake of browsing the Web. On the other hand the camera translates gestures into commands. Do you get the essence? To cut a long story short, you can hold up both your hands to frame a scene and flick your thumb to take a picture. You can also aim the device at an airplane boarding pass and the projector flashes the status of your upcoming flight. Mr. Mistry even made obvious a clever way to copy and paste text from a printed page.
What should be the expense then? Mr. Mistry said the device can be made for just $350, using off-the-shelf components and his source code, which he intends to make available on an open-source model. “What I am in interested in is how we can combine the two worlds — the physical world and the digital world,” said Mr. Mistry addressing the conference.
When will the technology hit the market? It’s not confirmed yet but several business honchos have already expressed interests.
