We've got ourselves some video of
MIT's new "sixth sense" project, which really helps explain the concept. MIT basically plans to augment reality with a pendant picoprojector: hold up an object at the store and the device blasts relevant information onto it (like environmental stats, for instance), which can be browsed and manipulated with hand gestures. The "sixth sense" in question is the internet, which naturally supplies the data, and that can be just about anything -- MIT has shown off the device projecting information about a person you meet at a party on that actual person (pictured), projecting flight status on a boarding pass, along with an entire non-contextual interface for reading email or making calls. It's pretty interesting technology, that, like many MIT Media Lab projects, makes the wearer look like a complete dork -- if the projector doesn't give it away, the colored finger bands the device uses to detect finger motion certainly might. There are patents already in the works for the technology, which the MIT folks have been working on "night and day" for the past four months, and we're guessing (and hoping) this isn't the last we'll see of this stuff. Video is after the break.
posted Feb 6th 2009 9:43AM
Proprioception is the sixth sense.
Proprioception isn't the 6th sense, talking about the sixth sense usually assumes the sixth sense in the category of external senses exteroceptive senses of which the sixth is actually balance.
Proprioception is part of our internal senses or interoceptive senses amongst which is pain and the sense of the relative position of body parts or proprioception.
Scary, to say the least, especially if the data comes generically from "the internet".
Haha wow, the guy with the display being projected onto his tshirt is one of my great friends from high scool. Go MIT Media Lab!
Now i have an excuse to project this onto my girlfriend and touch her "buttons".
Now I have an excuse to project this onto my girlfriend, and "touch her buttons".
The projector's a great idea, but I'd really like a HUD to pop up in my glasses.
Good work on this MIT, now start doing the thing a man on the internet just thought of.
Agreed. The real problem here is that the information being projected is visible to everybody, not just the person wearing the device. Maybe I don't want everybody else to know what I know.
Agreed too, they should be work with vuzix (http://www.vuzix.com/) or some company like that.
it doesn't even need to be in your glasses, it could be in your phone... wait that's already here
Hey, this sounds like a great idea.
That way when I'm looking at a girl across the room, my chest'll project information onto what God gave her. :|
Yeah, no, I'm not sure if this's the best way to execute the idea.
The concept is interesting, but I don't see it offering too many features that a smartphone doesn't already offer.
Go to a party, have it checking facebook and projecting someone's relationship status onto their chest. Right there it would save people tons of time.
I just want to do some of this:
Bill Gates: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmD1U6Gqaco
Jay-Z: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsE0g-8CDQo
Mark Cuban (Probably best one): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVyofNRyGzA
Make some of that stuff real, and I'll pay whatever you want. My non-essential organs are at your mercy.
Looking forward to seeing this in cellphones in 15 years :)
I get it but as far as public use I cant see it.Maybe when projectors become ULTRA tiny that this will work. This wouldnt be too bad on your umpc or phones but hanging around your neck it can get pretty annoying....
I has Internets in my t-shirt
Might work a bit better with a HMD type device. I don't think the projector is the way to go.
Next step: the Solid Eye.
I would have loved the guy to have put his hand up to his face at the end for jokes. Also, interpersonal communication where you have to stand at least 3 feet apart! If they make this popular, the world will be a safer place for nerds.
I see this as a future for social networking.
Combine this with some sort of marker information, possibly RFID enabled bracelet with some sort of privacy enabling feature so not everyone can see who you are. Combined with some sort of one way visual information "i can see it visually, but not everyone can" and people can walk around meeting people they met online, read a blog that's tagged to them, check out their latest photo gallery. Easily worked with WiFi networks available or over 3G/4G.
There's a definite future for this. I know its been tried before with bluetooth, but I think it was just too early for its time. Like two years ago too early.
And maybe one day, tags over your head like in WoW. I.e.
Adam H.
[25/M/TX - Likes Puppies]
Is it me or are some of the backgrounds in the first clip inconsistent?
natural born killers anyone?
It's baby signing time!!
Use a HUD, add location awareness, and link it to Google Earth and you pretty much have something straight out of Snow Crash.
Hiro - "...Smallest ever made. I'm walking down the street with this thing strapped to my belly. It's really cool"
YT - "You're a gargoyle."
Hiro - "Yeah, but it's not like having all this clunky sh*t strapped all over your body--"
YT - "You're a gargoyle."
Great idea, but id rather see this built into some transparant OLED glasses rather then a projector.
Change the display to a pair of sun glasses instead of a projector, and I'll pay whatever you ask. Also change the camera so we can mark out finger tips with clear, uv and ir reflective nail polish instead of strips of colored tape.
I'd feel very uncomfortable if I got such automated attention any time I checked something out, and especially in a bookstore, you'd be 'OK now the advertisers and the government knows I looked at a bookcover and which book it was, great'.
That doesn't even looks too bad.
couldnt this be done in a device similar to a cellphone where you dont need to have the projector and utilize the camera that is in most phones now, and use the display to get the relevant information, this seems like a waste of time, where the idea could easily translate to something a bit less gimmicky no one wants MORE things to carry, utilize whats around and innovate/improve. that would seem like an ideal way to integrate all of these things. no projector needed, seems ill advised.
good concept, good implementation, poor utility factor.
why so serious?!
Ive always been daydreaming about a device like this. Those fuckers beat me to it.
"I'm with stupid."
DAVID CHANG FTW!!!