People since the dawn of time have spoken about having a sixth sense, an intuitive understanding of the world and people around them that enabled them to draw conclusions seemingly impossible beyond the realm of the 5 senses.
Pattie Maes & Pranav Mistry of the MIT Media Lab unveiled a new technology platform at TED that enables users to access information and gain insights into the world around them combining technologies already available for a cost of around $350.
A camera surveys the landscape and recognizes gestures commonly used by the owner, processes this information, and then projects feedback onto a nearby surface, which in turn can be engaged and manipulated similar to Microsoft’s Surface application (the difference being that there is no need for an interactive surface with the image recognition technology).
Users can get information on products and people, access reviews and databases, and a whole lot more. Pattie Maes ended her talk with the hypothesis that in as short as a decade such technology might be implanted in people to integrate this information directly into one’s internal thought processes.
Watch the video, a short write-up really can’t do this game-changing technology justice. It is truly remarkable, where Minority Report meets The Matrix.
[...] Japanese researchers from Shinoda Labs unveiled touchable holograms this week at the Siggraph 2009 Conference for computer graphics and interactive techniques. The system currently mimics balls and raindrops, but watching the video above you can imagine where this technology will go in the future. Meanwhile, Nikon announced the first digital camera and projector at a $400 price point that enables users to project on a nearby wall, while Apple’s $1.2 billion dollar tablet is on the horizon for later this year, along with the CrunchPad, making portability of the internet cheaper and accessible. These will converge in the next 5 years into portable devices like the phone/camera/projector hybrid device in development at MIT Media Labs [...]