Wearable Gestural Interface Device

Just came across this video last night. If you’ve not watched this earlier – please watch it.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/videoshow_ted/5231080.cms

This technology prototype – SixthSense – is “a wearable gestural interface device that augments the physical world with digital information and lets people use natural hand gestures to interact with that information”.

Pranav Mistry, a PhD student at MIT who developed this, appears to have opened an entirely new spectrum of applications and integration opportunities.
Just reproducing below some snippets from Pranav’s website. Again, a video is worth a thousand words – so, in the hindsight, I find the stuff below a bit difficult to imagine just by reading – but have a look at the video on Indiatimes and you will immediately be able to appreciate the power of the technology.

http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/


“…The SixthSense prototype is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The hardware components are coupled in a pendant like mobile wearable device. Both the projector and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user’s pocket. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and physical objects around us to be used as interfaces; while the camera recognizes and tracks user's hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques. The software program processes the video stream data captured by the camera and tracks the locations of the colored markers (visual tracking fiducials) at the tip of the user’s fingers using simple computer-vision techniques. The movements and arrangements of these fiducials are interpreted into gestures that act as interaction instructions for the projected application interfaces. The maximum number of tracked fingers is only constrained by the number of unique fiducials, thus SixthSense also supports multi-touch and multi-user interaction…”

“…The SixthSense prototype implements several applications that demonstrate the usefulness, viability and flexibility of the system. The map application lets the user navigate a map displayed on a nearby surface using hand gestures, similar to gestures supported by Multi-Touch based systems, letting the user zoom in, zoom out or pan using intuitive hand movements. The drawing application lets the user draw on any surface by tracking the fingertip movements of the user’s index finger. SixthSense also recognizes user’s freehand gestures (postures). For example, the SixthSense system implements a gestural camera that takes photos of the scene the user is looking at by detecting the ‘framing’ gesture. The user can stop by any surface or wall and flick through the photos he/she has taken. SixthSense also lets the user draw icons or symbols in the air using the movement of the index finger and recognizes those symbols as interaction instructions. For example, drawing a magnifying glass symbol takes the user to the map application or drawing an ‘@’ symbol lets the user check his mail. The SixthSense system also augments physical objects the user is interacting with by projecting more information about these objects projected on them. For example, a newspaper can show live video news or dynamic information can be provided on a regular piece of paper. The gesture of drawing a circle on the user’s wrist projects an analog watch….”

PS : Building a prototype is one thing and making it a commercial success is another one ! This kind of apps will require a lot of collaboration between independent applications and Application Service Providers. So, application of Identity & Access Management would be an interesting area to explore. Any thoughts ?