Sixth Sense Technology

Human beings have evolved over many decades to sense the world around them. When we come across something, someone or some place, we generally use our five natural senses to comprehend information about it; that information helps us to make decisions and choose the right action to take.

Nevertheless, the most useful information that guides us to make the right decision is not naturally perceivable with our five senses, namely the data, information and knowledge that have been gathered about everything and which is easily available online.

Information until few last years was limited to paper or digitally on screen. Sixth sense technology bridges this gap, putting intangible, digital information out into the tangible world, and permitting the users to interact with this information via natural hand gestures.

Sixth sense technology enables the information to be free from its confines by seamlessly integrating it with reality. Basically Sixth sense is a “gesture based” device that is wearable and connects the physical world with digital information and allows people to use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.

The concept of augmented reality and its smooth implementation on the perceptions are the basic working principle of Sixth sense technology. The amazing Sixth sense technology is a combination of many predefined exquisite technology. The marvelous integration of all the technologies is one of the features that make the Sixth sense technology magnificent and its presentation into a single product which is portable and highly economical. It includes technologies like hand gestures, image capturing, processing and manipulation. It super imposes the digital world onto the real world.

The Sixth sense technology functions as a gateway or in better terms an interface between the digital world and the real world. The Sixth sense device which was invented by PranavMistry at MIT Media Lab was coined the name WuW(Wear Your World) and it is believes to be the prototype of next level of digital to real world transaction.

Multiuser interaction is one of the features that have been added to Sixth sense devices.  With the help of this feature the user can interact with systems by using more than one finger at a time. Sixth sense devices also incorporate Multi user functionality. This is typically useful for large interaction scenarios such as table tops and walls.

With the use of Sixth sense technology online information and technology can be incorporated into everyday life in a seamless manner. By providing already obtained information required for decision making beyond what we have access to with our natural five senses, it effectively gives users a sixth sense.

Advantages of Sixth sense technology:

•  Portability—The major advantage of sixth sense devices is its small size and its portability. The device can be easily carried around without any difficulty. All of the Sixth sense devices are light in weight and the smart phones cans easily be accommodated to fit in to the user’s pocket.

• Cost Effectiveness—One of the good feature of Sixth sense devices is that they are very economic. The cost required for the construction of the device is very low. It was manufactured from various parts collected together from common devices.. Commonly, a Sixth sense device might cost up to $300.

•  Accessibility of Data from machines in real time—The Sixth sense device helps the user to easily access data from any machine at real time speed. The user now does not need any machine human interface to access the data. The accessibility of data via recognition of hand gestures is much easier and user friendly as compared to the text user interface or graphical user interface which requires keyboard or mouse.

• Open Source Software—The software that would be required to interpret and analyze the data collected by the device is supposed to be made open source as claimed by its inventor. This will enable other developers to contribute to the development of the system.

  

Ms. Priyanka Gupta

Assistant Professor
Deptt. of Information Technology