Latitude

SixthSense: Superimposing the Digital onto the Physical

In a recent TED talk, Pranav Mistry, inventor of SixthSense technology, discussed real-world applications for transposing the digital world onto our everyday, physical surroundings.

“How about I take my digital world and paint the physical world with that digital information?”

Because pixels are actually, right now, confined in these rectangular devices that fit in our pockets. Why can I not remove this confine and take that to my everyday objects, everyday life so that I don’t need to learn the new language for interacting with those pixels?

SixthSense is founded on the notion of intuiting and facilitating digital information access needs through gestures (how we naturally interact with objects), and so eliminating the need to become “fluent” in the ways of conventional digital interfaces–by imposing them seemlessly onto our physical worlds.

Fewer Devices, Better Connection

“It will help us not be machines sitting in front of other machines.”

Compelling is the conceit that, if the necessity for physical, information devices begins to disappear from our everyday lives, we’ll begin to feel more connected to our surroundings; this doesn’t depend on an elimination of the digital but, instead, a fluid integration of the physical and the digital.

Mr. Mistry’s most poignant example of this relates to how we view, appreciate, and share the natural world (or a skyline).

(One need only make a certain gesture with his hands–without searching for, holding, or viewing the world through a camera–to take a picture).

Taking a photograph with SixthSense technology.

Resulting photograph via SixthSense.

Browsing & editing photographs indoors later with SixthSense.

SixthSense: Real-World Applications

Mr. Mistry’s talk (below) showcased a number of dazzling opportunities for SixthSense technology in our everyday lives (not even grazing the surface of immeasurable possibility, we’re sure). Here’s a few great examples:

Dialing a call on any surface.

Checking the time, naturally.

Playing "digital" pong on the Boston subway.

Gaming on a piece of paper.

Mixing media.

Integrating information to everyday objects will not only help us to get rid of the digital divide, the gap between these two worlds, but will also help us, in some way, to stay human, to be more connected to our physical world. And it will help us, actually, not be machines sitting in front of other machines.

View Mr. Mistry’s TED talk in full below:

Header image courtesy of SixthSense (Photo credit: Lynn Barry); all quotes and body images courtesy of Pranav Mistry, TEDIndia talk.