This week at TED, on the very stage where Bill Gates unleashed mosquitos into the audience to make a point about the need to cure Malaria, an MIT researcher, Patty Maes, unveiled a “six sense” device.
Maes demonstrated a portable device constructed out of commercial of the shelf products such as a web camera, pocket projector, and a cell phone.
What kind of “six sense” feats can it achieve?
Yahoo Tech captured the new ways to interact with the world made possible with this device:
- turn any surface into a touch-screen for computing, controlled by simple hand gestures
- take photographs by framing a scene with your hands
- project a watch face by creating a circle on your wrist with your finger
- recognize items on store shelves and provide personalized recommendations
- look at an airplane ticket and know whether the flight is on time
- project information about a book while browsing at a store
- recognize articles in newspapers, retrieve the latest related stories or video from the Internet and play them on pages
Augmented reality enthusiasts would immediately recognize these fantastic ideas. Whether you use cell phones, goggles, or a projectors to view the added information – it’s a whole new way to interact with the world.
Now we have to wait patiently until TED uploads the video. ***update*** see videos below.
Last year cellphones took center stage in spearheading augmented reality into the main stream. Out of the blue comes this spatial augmented reality cobbled-together-device and takes the spot light.
Oliver Bimber is not surprised. He’s been leading that school of thought for a while and even wrote a book about it: Spatial Augmented Reality: Merging Real and Virtual Worlds
So what’s the total?
“Six sense” device: $300
Interacting with the world in a totally new way: priceless…
ETA: 2019
***update***
Andy Baio just tipped me off that Wired posted up these videos – thanks Andy!
Vodpod videos no longer available. Vodpod videos no longer available.
Filed under: AR Demos, AR Devices | Tagged: augmented reality, Patty Maes, Six sense device |
Games Alfresco 
Very nice stuff.
I’m skeptical about the camera example. (it has to be pointing the right way anyway….all your hands would do is crop it). And projection always has the disadvantage of contrast. (no blacks).
Still, the interface looks slick and its amazing this can be done for $300. Dirt cheap, considering thats before refinement, mass production or encomys of scale kick in.
Some very nice ideas in the vid too, I like the book example.
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i liked that video and was confused was it real. it was fantastic.