SixthSense - integrating information with the real world

SixthSense 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. Nowadays, although the miniaturization of computing devices allows us to carry computers in our pockets, keeping us continually connected to the digital world, there is no link between our digital devices and our interactions with the physical world. Information is confined traditionally on paper or digitally on a screen. SixthSense bridges this gap, bringing intangible, digital information out into the tangible world, and allowing us to interact with this information via natural hand gestures. SixthSense frees information from its confines by seamlessly integrating it with reality, and thus making the entire world your computer. Basically, Sixth Sense is a mini-projector coupled with a camera and a cell phone which acts as the computer and your connection to the Cloud, all the information stored on the web. The SixthSense prototype contains a number of demonstration applications.

The map application lets the user navigate a map displayed on a nearby surface using hand gestures to zoom and pan The drawing application lets the user draw on any surface by tracking the fingertip movements of the users index finger. SixthSense also implements Augmented reality; projecting information onto objects the user interacts with.

The system recognizes a user's freehand gestures as well as icons/symbols drawn in the air with the index finger, for example:

A 'framing' gesture takes a picture of the scene. The user can stop by any surface or wall and flick through the photos he/she has taken. Drawing a magnifying glass symbol takes the user to the map application while an @ symbol lets the user check his mail. The gesture of drawing a circle on the users wrist projects an analog watch.

This technology mainly was developed by Pranav Mistry, a PhD student in the Fluid Interfaces Group at the MIT Media Lab. Sixth sense technology has the potential of becoming the ultimate "transparent" user interface for accessing information about everything around us. Prarthana T.V M. Tech, I sem(CSE)