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MIT develop Wear Ur World, 6th sense hand gesture gadget


MIT researcher Pattie Maes demonstrated a new gadget earlier this week at a technology conference in South California. It is called Wear Ur World (WUW), or 6th Sense and allows you to access information as though you always have a PC in front of you, but controlled by hand gestures.

What the researchers have done is combine a number of standard gadgets including a webcam, projector, and mobile phone, to form a brand new interaction experience. In its current form the battery-powered projector is attached to a hat, the webcam is hung around the neck (or also positioned on a hat), and the mobile phone provides the connection to the Internet.

The wearer uses hand gestures combined with the gadgets to perform actions. So, for example, they could make a circle over their wrist with the fingers of one hand. WUW would recognize this action and project a clock face on to their wrist. Make a picture frame with both your hands and WUW will take a picture as if it was a camera. Stand near a wall and you can get a projected desktop allowing you to open applications, view the pictures you’ve taken, or surf the ‘Net.

At the moment it is just a prototype system, but because it uses off-the-shelf components the cost of creating one is just $300 for the hardware involved.

Patty Maes commented:

Other than letting some of you live out your fantasy of looking as cool as Tom Cruise in ‘Minority Report’ it can really let you connect as a sixth sense device with whatever is in front of you … You can use any surface, including your hand if nothing else is available, and interact with the data … It is very much a work in progress. Maybe in ten years we will be here with the ultimate sixth-sense brain implant.

Read more at the AFP article

Matthew’s Opinion
I don’t know about this being offered as a brain implant, but it could certainly be condensed down into a pair of glasses. The projector would be in the center of the frame, the webcam just below it, and the mobile phone could be integrated into one of the arms that goes over you ear, or form a plug-in device.

The key to this working with hand gestures is ensuring the webcam and projector move with your eyes. Putting them on glasses seems the easiest solution to that problem. Use WUW for a long time though, and your arms may get tired.

Decoupling you from carrying multiple gadgets and making the interface just your hands will offer a new level of freedom when it comes to accessing information. You will no longer have to find a PC to surf the ‘Net. If you want to take a picture there is no more pulling a camera out of your pocket, turning it on, and waiting for it to be ready – you just picture frame what you want with your hands and its done.

I hope it doesn’t take a decade for such a device to appear as the researcher suggests, we may get them in a more crude form well-before then.