Introduction
1. Sixth Sense is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.
2. It was developed by Pranav Mistry, a PhD student in the Fluid Interfaces Group at the MIT Media Lab.
3. Sixth Sense bridges the gap by bringing intangible, digital information out into the tangible world, and allowing us to interact with this information via natural hand.
4. Sixth Sense comprises a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The hardware components are coupled in a pendant like mobile wearable device.
Components
The hardware components are coupled in a pendant like mobile wearable device.
1. Camera
2. Smart Phone
3. Projector
4. Mirror
5. Color Markers
Camera
1. Captures an object in view and tracks the users hand gestures.
2. It sends the data to smart phone
3. It acts as a digital eye, connecting you to the world of digital information
Smart Phone
1. A Web-enabled smart phone in the users pocket processes the video data
2. Other software searches the Web and interprets the hand gestures
3. It always keep us connected to the digital world.
Projector
1. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces and physical objects to be used as interfaces.
2. The project itself contains a battery inside, with 3 hours of battery life.
3. A tiny LED projector displays data sent from the smart phone on any surface in view- object, wall, or person.
Mirror
1. The usage of the mirror is significant as the projector dangles pointing downwards from the neck.
Color Markers
1. It is at the tip of the user’s fingers .
2. Marking the user’s fingers with red, yellow, green, and blue tape helps the webcam recognize gestures .
3. The movements and arrangements of these makers are interpreted into gestures that act as interaction instructions for the projected application Interfaces.
4. The hardware that makes Sixth Sense work is a pendant like mobile wearable interface.
5. It has a camera, a mirror and a projector and is connected wirelessly to a Bluetooth smart phone that can slip comfortably into one’s pocket.
6. The camera recognizes individuals, images, pictures, gestures one makes with their hands
7. Information is sent to the Smartphone for processing. The downward-facing projector projects the output image on to the mirror.
8. Mirror reflects image on to the desired surface. Thus, digital information is freed from its confines and placed in the physical world.
Related Technology
1. Augmented reality is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual computer generated imagery.
2. Gesture recognition is a topic in computer science and language technology with the goal of interpreting human gestures via mathematical algorithms.
3. Computer vision is the science and technology of machines that see. It is concerned with the theory behind artificial systems that extract information from images.
4. Radio Frequency Identification is basically an electronic tagging technology that allows the detection, tracking of tags and consequently the objects that they are affixed to.
Advantages
1. Portable.
2. Connectedness between world and information.
3. Cost effective.
4. Data access directly from machine in real time.
5. Mind map the idea anywhere.
6. It is an open source Supports multi-touch and multi-user interaction.
Disadvantages
1. Hardware limitations of the devices, that we currently carry around with us.
2. Many phones will not allow the external camera feed to be manipulated in real time.
3. Post processing can occur however.
Conclusion
1. Sixth Sense recognizes the objects around us, displaying information automatically and letting us to access it in any way we need.
2. The Sixth Sense prototype implements several applications that demonstrate the usefulness, viability and flexibility of the system.
3. Allowing us to interact with this information via natural hand gestures.
4. The potential of becoming the ultimate “transparent” user interface for accessing information about everything around us.
