Pranav Mistry's Sixth Sense

Pranav Mistry

With my recent blog posts, I have started to become extremely interested in TED talks.  Mistry begins his TED talk by talking about his earlier inventions.  First off, he discusses his invention "Quickies" which are essentially intelligent Post-It Notes.  These notes are connected to your computer and as you write on them, the information is transferred to your computer.  The notes can also be synced with your phone, sent as texts, or answered if they are in question form.  When writing a question, the answer can be printed out after the computer reads what the question is.  In addition to "Quickies", Mistry invented a pen which can draw in 3D.  It uses cameras and receivers to see which what the pen is drawing and it shows up on  computer screen in 3D.  This can be helpful for architects.  Finally, Mistry moves on to his newest, and in my opinion coolest, invention.

Sixth Sense was originally developed as a bike helmet with a camera and projector on it which could read these colored tips that Mistry would put on his fingers.  With this, he is able to interact with the digital world and move around objects in a way that reminds me of the movie "Minority Report".  The color markers on your fingers are recognized by the camera which allow you to do things with objects and zoom in and out by pinching your fingers much like you would on your phone's touch screen.  He also wants to begin to use Sixth Sense in order to take pictures without using a camera.  Just by making a rectangular shape with your hands as if you were taking a fake picture, the picture would actually be taken and saved on your camera.  Then, you can view these pictures on any wall and edit them and send them to people.  Also, you can use things like your palm as a surface to project numbers and dial a phone number on your palm.

Mistry goes on to describe how Sixth Sense can be used to be show you information regarding objects you are holding in your hands.  For instance, he uses Sixth Sense to look at a book and then once the invention recognizes the book, it projects text reviews, sound reviews, and other info about the book.  Also, on a newspaper, you can video of events that occurred and also you can see live weather projected over a map on the paper.  There are other uses that he describes like reading an airline ticket and it projects whether the flight is on time, delayed, or cancelled.  The things that Sixth Sense can potentially do are endless and I found this invention to be absolutely amazing.