Children have a full-time occupation: playing. For them, it’s a happy talent to know how to play. As a child, I remember, I used to play a whole lot of games, some with friends, while some alone in the house, some of them used to be the well-known indoor and outdoor games, while ideas of some others came out of our little imaginative minds. Among all these, a very common game that we often used to play, and I guess you all, especially girls, can relate to it at it’s best, and have played at least once, is the domestic home game, in which we used to act like we are in a different world, yet living a same kind of life with our imaginary families. In this game, we used to make gestures to do any kind of activities, be it cooking, eating, talking over the phone, clicking pictures with camera, writing (also doing gestures on walls like writing on a board), and what not! I remember I also used to make patterns on my wrist like a watch and act as if I’m wearing a real watch. While playing this game I used to wonder how nice it would have been if there actually existed a way in which even without owning any gadgets, like a cellphone, camera or wrist watch, we could just make gestures to actually use them! This question remained in my mind and I thought more and more about what other things could be done if actually such an incredible technology existed. I used to look at the pictures in my books and imagine how interesting it would be if only by looking at the pictures I could see them moving and describing the stories and give knowledge. Or how fun would it be if we could know their name, characteristics and interests just by a glance!

Well these all imaginations, thoughts and questions remained in my mind and I did not know whom to discuss with, who really would be knowing if anything as such practically exists or not. All my doubts and queries found a way and I found that there actually exists a world of technology that I used to imagine, when one fine day in my early days of exploring the Internet, I came across an interesting term, “The Sixth Sense Technology”.

As the name implies, the Sixth Sense Technology alludes to a sense in addition to our five traditional physical senses, i.e., it is about comprehending information more than our available senses. We communicate with the digital world around us using the enormous gadgets available to us. But we can’t directly interact with the digital world since our physical body is not meant for the digital world. The primary goal of the Sixth Sense Technology is to connect the digital and the real world seamlessly and to interact with the digital world in the most direct and efficient way.

History of the Sixth Sense Technology

Idea behind this incredible technology was started in the late 1990’s by Steve Mann (who can be considered as the “Father of the emergence of the Sixth Sense Technology”) at MIT, and further developed after some years by Pranav Mistry, who was then a PhD student at MIT Media Lab. WuW(Wear your World) was the name first proposed by Pranav Mistry, Pattie Maes and Liyan Chang for this technology. With the goal to leverage our knowledge about everyday objects and use them to interact with the digital world, Pranav Mistry started an experiment, with two mouses. He took the 4 rollers off from them and put them in a single line. It had some strings, springs and pulleys and what he ultimately got was a basic gesture-interface device that actually acted like a motionsensing device. The four roller-experiment gave him the idea that he could use the same concept on fingers and that’s what he next moved on to.

What is the Sixth Sense Technology?

Sixth sense is basically a wearable gesture interface that emphasizes the physical world around us with the digital information available and enables us to use our natural hand gestures to interact with that information. This spectacular technology is an integration of many magnificent technologies and is a intuition of the concept of augmented reality. It bridges the gap between the digital and the real world.

Components required for the Sixth Sense Technology

The first archetype or model of the sixth sense technology was bigger in size-big projector mounted on a helmet- and was not comfortable or easy to use for regular working purposes. Therefore, later the scientists came out with a modified neck-worn type, pendant-like device which was much easier and comfortable to use.

The basic components required for the sixth sense technology are:

Camera

This is the digital eye of the system. It captures and recognizes the hand movements and gestures made by the user and the scenes the user is looking at.

Projector

The projector augments the physical object, wall or any other interface. It faces downward and projects the output image on the mirror so that the user can adjust the focus and project on the desired image; it runs on a rechargeable battery.

Mirror

The mirror reverts the projection coming out from the projector. Thus, the projection can be made on any desired object, like the wall. The mirror can be tilted manually to change the location of projection.

Microphone

This is an optional component in the sixth sense technology. It is required when we use a paper as an interface; the microphone when attached with paper, senses the sound signal of the user touching the paper; combining with the tracking information about the user’s fingers to a computing device, creates a touch interface.

Mobile-computing device

This technology uses a mobile-computing device as a processing device in the user’s pocket. The camera, projector and microphone are connected to this computing device either using wires or wirelessly. All the features of this system run on this computing device, which is connected to a network or a wireless connection.

Advantages

1. It has been made open-source.

2. It is cheap to build and use.

3. It is a portable, handy technology.

4. It can be used by anyone and everyone, even by a person with zero knowledge about mouse and keyboard.

5. This technology does not make humans understand the language and knowledge of computers, rather it makes machines and computers to adapt to human needs.

Applications

The sixth sense technology implements huge no. of numerous applications that demonstrate its usefulness and flexibility.

1. Using this technology, a virtual watch can be obtained just by drawing a circle on our wrist with our index finger which would show us the accurate time.

2. This technology can turn a simple piece of paper into a digital display. For e.g., a newspaper can show the live video of a news.

3.. The technology enables users to find millions of books over the internet that matches with the cover of the book the user is holding; if the name of the book is known, the technology may also provide all reviews available on it, including the sound reviews, just with the physical book in hand.

4.Using this technology, we may project a keypad on our palm and use the virtual keypad to make a call, without the use of an actual mobile phone.

5. Just by projecting at our boarding pass, we may find the direction of the flight gate or even check how much our flight has been delayed.

6. The sixth sense technology implements map which enables the user display the map on any physical interface and find his destination; we can use our thumb and index fingers to navigate the map, say, to zoom in or zoom out.

7. To capture an image, we may just make gesture of clicking a picture with our thumb and index fingers, and the image gets captured, which may later be modified, printed, shared or even transferred to our computer.

8. Just by looking at a person, we may even get to see information on him/her displayed on the body.

(Aren’t these unbelievable and incredible??!!)

Current State of the Sixth Sense Technology

The idea that Steve Mann and eventually Pranav Mistry came up with was extremely unique. Especially Pranav Mistry took up this technology to a different level, giving rise to the foundation of an era where computing will actually merge with the physical world, making a profitable innovation. The commercial product of the technology has not been launched yet, but the prototype is already prepared. It’s hardware and software assembly instructions are open-source. If in the near future, this technology can be made available to the mass, then the world would experience a massive success in the field of technology, and a new generation of technology would begin!

The Future of Sixth Sense Technology

In future, this marvelous technology may find numerous useful applications making workflow more intuitive.

1. The technology may be of great help for the disabled people:

• People who cannot speak can make others understand what they want to say with their sign movement’s recognition converted into text.

• For the blind people, the camera may act as an eye, like their fifth sense.

2. The future may see a great amplification in the 3D print media.

3. A better world will come into existence through sixth sense technology with holography.

4.The technology is almost like setting up a digital system in our body and implementing it in our everyday life.

Thus, this technology integrates information to everyday objects, which not only help us get rid of the digital devices, but also fills the gap between the physical and the digital worlds.

And so, by exploring about the Sixth Sense technology, I found answers to all my queries and interests which had grown in my mind during my childhood through a mere game and I inferred that indeed, all the activities I imagined of doing are actually possible with the help of this mesmerizing technology, the “Sixth Sense Technology”.

“It is important that we stay humans, rather than being just machines, sitting in front of other machines.”

- PRANAV MISTRY