Videos: The innovative SixthSense device

Imagine using a gadget which lets you use any surface such as a wall or even your hand as touchscreen. The MIT Media Labs have developed such a gadget called a SixthSense device, it is an augmented reality device, and a gestural interface device in that one can use gestures to determine what gets done (such as taking a photo, viewing the time, or even dialling your mobile), and you can have images projected on almost any surface.

Pattie Maes (associate professor of the MIT Media Labs), along with PhD student Pranav Mistry who invented this device, demonstrated a prototype in a TED Conference in February 2009, a video of which is shown below:



Pranav Mistry also explained the concept of the SixthSense device he developed, and also its potential applications in a later TED Conference in November 2009, the video of which is shown below:



As stated in the videos, the prototype was created using a mobile projector, webcam, mobile phone, mirror, and coloured caps for a cost of only $350 (£220, €243), so it is estimated that the final product will be no more expensive than a standard mobile phone by the time it is manufactured for the end user, and there is scope for making the final product even more sleeker and eyecatching.  The software for the SixthSense device will be made open source.

Could SixthSense be the future of mobile devices and mobile Internet browsing?  The SixthSense device is certainly innovative, an exciting development, and it has tremendous potential.  And there could well be other updates to the SixthSense concept in the future.

External links

• Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry demos SixthSense
• Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology
• TED website