Ever wanted to look as cool as Tom Cruise in Minority report?

By Jurgen Noel on 18 May 2009 in New (ways of using) Media | Comments Off

Well it’s no longer science fiction!

As demonstrated by Patty Maes - Belgian MIT professor & specialist in artificial intelligence – on TED.com this technology is now within our grasp. Together with her team she succeeded in building and programming a device that truly delivers us augmented reality; by bringing intangible, digital information out into the tangible world, and allowing us to interact with this information via natural hand gestures.

By combining a bunch of todays technologies & devices they conjured up “the sixth sense”. All that’s required is a 3G phone, a camera, a projector, a small mirror & some nifty programming.

For just 350$ worth of hardware and that’s before this hits mass production… So watch out iPhone!

How’s this going to influence your lives in the not so distant future?

Lets start out gently… Imaging walking around and taking pictures simply by aiming picture hand gesture at something. Then later walking up to any surface (a wall, table or even your hand if nothing else is available) simply project the photos you took earlier, sort them, crop, delete & zoom all with a few simple and natural hand gestures?! Now there’s Tom Cruise for you, right there.

But let’s not stop there?! Imaging going grocery shopping, picking up a product… the sixth sense device could scan the bar code, go online, check your personal nutrition profile and tell you if you’re allergic or if it contains substances you want to avoid by simple projecting a green or red dot on the product. Clicking it your give you additional info on the reasons why this product is good for you or not.

Traditional Newspapers could have live Youtube videos integrated. The sixth sense could recognize the title or code and project the movie on the white space.

Picking up a book in the bookstore will never be the same again. The cover is recognized, flip it and read the best reviews posted on Amazon. Link that to your Facebook profile & find out on the spot if any of your friends have read it & what they thought of it.

Of course this device could also find out if the book you’re holding isn’t cheaper in a bookstore nearby (or online) and provide you with the directions of how to get there.

Just think about the unlimited possibilities?!

But before you start watching this demo video, take out your stopwatch so you can tell me how long it took you to say…I HAVE TO HAVE THIS!!

The intro is a bit long, but this is definitely 8min 43seconds you’re not going to regret!!

Tags: new technology, new ways of, Patty Maes, the sixth sense