Very Cool Wearable Computing Gadget from MIT

Posted on March 11, 2009 7 Comments

Pattie Maes presentation at TED shows a very cool prototype for wearable, useful computing spearheaded by Pranav Mistry (who received a standing ovation at TED). It’s a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment.

The prototype of the system cost only $350. The software, created by them, obviously is the key, but how amazing is that, $350 for the hardware used in the prototype! There is a useful web site on the Sixth Sense project.

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.

Related: Awesome Cat Cam – Cool Mechanical Simulation System – Engineering a Better World: Bike Corn-Sheller – posts on cool gadgets

7 thoughts on “Very Cool Wearable Computing Gadget from MIT”

  1. Chris

    Nice gadget. I’m sure there will be many that are going to use it, and the price is incredibly low, I think that there are many normal gadgets like that that aren’t mobile twice the price. I look forward to the time when it’s going to reach the retail stores.

  2. Ed Harris

    That price is hard to believe. Are you sure there isn’t a missing 0?

    Maybe not as fin as Madden Football for the kids, but there’s promise there!

  3. Pingback: Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog » Graphene: Engineered Carbon

  4. Pingback: Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog » Low-Cost Multi-touch Whiteboard Using Wii Remote

  5. Anonymous

    wow…very nice and cool gadget. I love the price as well. They can easily sell this gadget for well over $500 but the price makes this even more interesting and something that will be on my list to get. thanks for sharing.

  6. Pingback: Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog » Droid Incredible

  7. Pingback: Google Cardboard 3d Viewer Helped Surgeons Save Baby’s Life » Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog

Comments are closed.