MIT's "sixth sense" augmented reality device demonstrated on video

by Paul Miller, posted Feb 6th 2009 at 9:43AM

We've got ourselves some video of MIT's new "sixth sense" project, which really helps explain the concept. MIT basically plans to augment reality with a pendant picoprojector: hold up an object at the store and the device blasts relevant information onto it (like environmental stats, for instance), which can be browsed and manipulated with hand gestures. The "sixth sense" in question is the internet, which naturally supplies the data, and that can be just about anything -- MIT has shown off the device projecting information about a person you meet at a party on that actual person (pictured), projecting flight status on a boarding pass, along with an entire non-contextual interface for reading email or making calls. It's pretty interesting technology, that, like many MIT Media Lab projects, makes the wearer look like a complete dork -- if the projector doesn't give it away, the colored finger bands the device uses to detect finger motion certainly might. There are patents already in the works for the technology, which the MIT folks have been working on "night and day" for the past four months, and we're guessing (and hoping) this isn't the last we'll see of this stuff. Video is after the break.