Solving a Mistry

What do you get when you combine a Web cam, a projector and a mirror, all connected wirelessly to a Bluetooth smartphone. You get Sixth Sense. It is still a mystery product that is not commercially available yet. But it will and will cost under $300 when commercially produced. The “Mistry” in question is Pranav Mistry, Research Assistant and PhD candidate at the MIT Media Lab. How do we make the real world interact with information using gestures. That is a mystery Pranav and Pattie Mae have solved.Access to information that exists somewhere can give you an advantage. Hey look what having a search engine can do to the way you retrieve information. The constraint is that you pretty much need to have a cell phone or a portable computer which will give you access to the database. If you had constant access to the information on the Web by just your hand gestures you could live your life differently. Imagine that you have gone to see the Taj Mahal. You stand in front of the Taj and and create an imaginary photo frame the way the directors do while they shoot movies and voila the photo gets clicked. That is Sixth Sense tech for you. It connects technology to your instinct. When connected to the internet, the huge database of real time data can create a game changing device like sixth sense. You can watch the demo at Ted.com TED is short for Technology Entertainment and Design. That is one of the places you go to find out what is cool. And if that peer group gives you a standing ovation, you know that you are on to something big. That’s what Pranav Mistry got for the design. The news media around the world has sat up and noticed. In the last few days so many of my friends have been forwarding me the TED.com link to go take a look and get blown away. There are still some creases that need ironing out. For example you have to hold an object at a certain distance and at a certain angle for it to get scanned. But that does not take away from the coolness of the idea. I loved it.

That is not the only thing that he has created. Pranav has been a serial inventor. While in college he invented something called Quickies. Many people have done that in college you might tell me but then these Quickies are different. This is your typical Post-it note that can interface with the physical world. In the note to my right there a reminder to meet Ayesha at 6:30. Imagine that as soon as you write it, your computer updates your calendar and marks it automatically without your having to.

Pranav Mistry has his photos posted on his page at Flickr.com. The video featured below is from his youtube.com account Enjoy.