The five human senses are touch, smell, taste, sight and hearing.
Coordinated by Pattie Maes, a group of MIT researchers proposes a new sense, the sixth sense, which would facilitate communication and human interaction. The Sixth Sense is, actually, a device that should be weared and that works as a full time computer type device.
The device has a video camera, a projector and a mirror. The projector allows someone to use the objects surrounding them as an interface, manipulated by the hands of the user.
A very interesting fact is that the prototype costs something like $350 to be build.
Here’s a wonderful example of tech development that directly applied to daily consumer life. The limits of adaptability are only our imagination – I’m excited to think how many great applications a device such as this can have in hospitality and travel, both for guests/ travellers and behind the scenes at an operational level!
Of course, there will always be drawbacks to technology too…for example, when this is finally adopted on a mass consumer level, just what sort of impact will it have on our ability to think, reason and choose on our own? Will the constant stream of ‘enabling’ devices and tech make us lazy and gullible to marketing and crowdthink?
Things to think about…but for now, these moves forward in technology need to be celebrated for what they are…an immense paradigm shift in the way we think, interact and collaborate!
About Pattie Maes: At the MIT Media Lab’s new Fluid Interfaces Group, Pattie Maes researches the tools we use to work with information and connect with one another.
About Pranav Mistry: Pranav Mistry is the genius behind Sixth Sense, a wearable device that enables new interactions between the real world and the world of data.
