SIXTH SENSE TECHNOLOGY : Pranav Mistry

 ABSTRACT 

Sixth Sense Technology is a mini-projector coupled with a camera and a cellphone—which acts as the computer and connected to the Cloud, all the information stored on the web. Sixth Sense can also obey hand gestures. The camera recognizes objects around a person instantly, with the micro-projector overlaying the information on any surface, including the object itself or hand. Also can access or manipulate the information using fingers. make a call by Extend hand on front of the projector and numbers will appear for to click. know the time by Draw a circle on wrist and a watch will appear. take a photo by Just make a square with fingers, highlighting what want to frame, and the system will make the photo—which can later organize with the others using own hands over the air.and The device has a huge number of applications , it is portable and easily to carry as can wear it in neck.  

The drawing application lets user draw on any surface by observing the movement of index finger. Mapping can also be done anywhere with the features of zooming in or zooming out. The camera also helps user to take pictures of the scene is viewing and later can arrange them on any surface. Some of the more practical uses are reading a newspaper. reading a newspaper and viewing videos instead of the photos in the paper. Or live sports updates while reading the newspaper.  

The device can also tell arrival, departure or delay time of air plane on tickets. For book lovers it is nothing less than a blessing. Open any book and find the Amazon ratings of the book. To add to it, pick any page and the device gives additional information on the text, comments and lot more add on feature

INTRODUCTION 

We’ve evolved over millions of years to sense the world around us. When we encounter 

something, someone or some place, we use our five natural senses which includes eye, ear, 

nose, tongue mind and body to perceive information about it; that information helps us make 

decisions and chose the right actions to take. But arguably the most useful information that 

can help us make the right decision is not naturally perceivable with our five senses, namely 

the data, information and knowledge that mankind has accumulated about everything and 

which is increasingly all available online. 

 Although the miniaturization of computing devices allows us to carry computers in our 

pockets, keeping us continually connected to the digital world, there is no link between our 

digital devices and our interactions with the physical world. Information is confined 

traditionally on paper or digitally on a screen. SixthSense bridges this gap, bringing 

intangible, digital information out into the tangible world, and allowing us to interact with 

this information via natural hand gestures. ‘SixthSense’ frees information from its confines 

by seamlessly integrating it with reality, and thus making the entire world your computer.  

“Sixth Sense Technology”, it is the newest jargon that has proclaimed its presence in the 

technical arena. This technology has emerged, which has its relation to the power of these six 

senses. Our ordinary computers will soon be able to sense the different feelings accumulated 

in the surroundings and it is all a gift of the ”Sixth Sense Technology” newly introduced. 

SixthSense is a wearable “gesture based” device that augments the physical world with 

digital information and lets people use natural hand gestures to interact with that information. 

 It was developed by Pranav Mistry, a PhD student in the Fluid Interfaces Group at the MIT 

Media Lab. A grad student with the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT, he caused a storm with 

his creation of SixthSense.  He says that the movies “Robocop” and “Minority Report” gave 

him the inspiration to create his view of a world not dominated by computers, digital 

information and human robots, but one where computers and other digital devices enhance 

people’s enjoyment of the physical world.  

Right now, we use our “devices” (computers, mobile phones, tablets, etc.) to go into the 

internet and get information that we want.  With SixthSense we will use a device no bigger 

than current cell phones and probably eventually as small as a button on our shirts to bring 

the internet to us in order to interact with our world! 

 SixthSense will allow us to interact with our world like never before.  We can get 

information on anything we want from anywhere within a few moments!  We will not only be 

able to interact with things on a whole new level but also with people!  One great part of the 

device is its ability to scan objects or even people and project out information regarding what 

you are looking at. 

   SIXTH SENSE TECHNOLOGY 

What is SixthSense? 

Sixth Sense in scientific (or non-scientific) terms is defined as Extra Sensory Perception 

or in short ESP. It involves the reception of information not gained through any of the five 

senses. Nor is it taken from any experiences from the past or known. Sixth Sense aims to 

more seamlessly integrate online information and tech into everyday life. By making 

available information needed for decision-making beyond what we have access to with our 

five senses, it effectively gives users a sixth sense.  

 Earlier SixthSense Prototype 

Maes’ MIT group, which includes seven graduate students, were thinking about how a 

person could be more integrated into the world around them and access information without 

having to do something like take out a phone. They initially produced a wristband that would 

read an Radio Frequency Identification tag to know, for example, which book a user is 

holding in a store. 

They also had a ring that used infrared to communicate by beacon to supermarket smart 

shelves to give you information about products. As we grab a package of macaroni, the ring 

would glow red or green to tell us if the product was organic or free of peanut traces — 

whatever criteria we program into the system. 

They wanted to make information more useful to people in real time with minimal effort 

in a way that doesn’t require any behaviour changes. The wristband was getting close, but we 

still had to take out our cell phone to look at the information. 

  

That’s when they struck on the idea of accessing information from the internet and 

projecting it. So someone wearing the wristband could pick up a paperback in the bookstore 

and immediately call up reviews about the book, projecting them onto a surface in the store 

or doing a keyword search through the book by accessing digitized pages on Amazon or 

Google books. 

They started with a larger projector that was mounted on a helmet. But that proved 

cumbersome if someone was projecting data onto a wall then turned to speak to friend — the 

data would project on the friend’s face. 

 Recent Prototype 

Now they have switched to a smaller projector and created the pendant prototype to be 

worn around the neck. 

The SixthSense prototype is composed of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The 

hardware components are coupled in a pendant-like mobile wearable device. Both the 

projector and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user’s pocket. 

We can very well consider the Sixth Sense Technology as a blend of the computer and the 

cell phone. It works as the device associated to it is hanged around the neck of a person and 

thus the projection starts by means of the micro projector attached to the device. Therefore, in 

course, you turn out to be a moving computer in yourself and the fingers act like a mouse and 

a keyboard. 

The prototype was built from an ordinary webcam and a battery-powered 3M projector, 

with an attached mirror — all connected to an internet-enabled mobile phone. The setup, 

which costs less than $350, allows the user to project information from the phone onto any 

surface — walls, the body of another person or even your hand. 

Mistry wore the device on a lanyard around his neck, and colored Magic Marker caps on 

four fingers (red, blue, green and yellow) helped the camera distinguish the four fingers and 

recognize his hand gestures with software that Mistry created.   

WORKING OF SIXTH SENSE TECHNOLOGY  

 Components 

The hardware components are coupled in a pendant like mobile wearable device.  

 *Camera  

 *Projector  

 *Mirror  

 *Mobile Component 

 *Color Markers 

-1)  Camera 

A webcam captures and recognises an object in view and tracks the user’s hand gestures 

using computer-vision based techniques. 

 It sends the data to the smart phone. The camera, in a sense, acts as a digital eye, seeing 

what the user sees. It also tracks the movements of the thumbs and index fingers of both of 

the user's hands. The camera recognizes objects around you instantly, with the micro

projector overlaying the information on any surface, including the object itself or your hand.   

-2)Projector

Also, a projector opens up interaction and sharing. The project itself contains a battery inside, 

with 3 hours of battery life. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls 

and physical objects around us to be used as interfaces. We want this thing to merge with the 

physical world in a real physical sense. You are touching that object and projecting info onto 

that object. The information will look like it is part of the object. A tiny LED projector 

displays data sent from the smart phone on any surface in view–object, wall, or person. 

-3) Mirror

The usage of the mirror is significant as the projector dangles pointing downwards from 

the neck.   

-4)Mobile Component

The mobile devices like Smartphone in our pockets transmit and receive voice and data 

anywhere and to anyone via the mobile internet. An accompanying Smartphone runs the 

SixthSense software, and handles the connection to the internet. A Web-enabled smart phone 

in the user’s pocket processes the video data. Other software searches the Web and interprets 

the hand gestures. 

-5)Color Markers 

It is at the tip of the user’s fingers. Marking the user’s fingers with red, yellow, green, and 

blue tape helps the webcam recognize gestures. The movements and arrangements of these 

makers are interpreted into gestures that act as interaction instructions for the projected 

application interfaces. 

Working

 The hardware that makes Sixth Sense work is a pendant like mobile wearable 

interface 

It has a camera, a mirror and a projector and is connected wirelessly to a Bluetooth or 

3G or wifi smart phone that can slip comfortably into one’s pocket 

The camera recognizes individuals, images, pictures, gestures one makes with their 

hands 

Information is sent to the Smartphone for processing 

The downward-facing projector projects the output image on to the mirror 

Mirror reflects image on to the desired surface 

Thus, digital information is freed from its confines and placed in the physical world 

The entire hardware apparatus is encompassed in a pendant-shaped mobile wearable 

device. Basically the camera recognises individuals, images, pictures, gestures one makes 

with their hands and the projector assists in projecting any information on whatever type of 

surface is present in front of the person. The usage of the mirror is significant as the projector 

dangles pointing downwards from the neck. To bring out variations on a much higher plane, 

in the demo video which was broadcasted to showcase the prototype to the world, Mistry uses 

coloured caps on his fingers so that it becomes simpler for the software to differentiate 

between the fingers, demanding various applications.  

The software program analyses the video data caught by the camera and also tracks down 

the locations of the coloured markers by utilising single computer vision techniques. One can 

have any number of hand gestures and movements as long as they are all reasonably 

identified and differentiated for the system to interpret it, preferably through unique and 

varied fiducials. This is possible only because the ‘Sixth Sense’ device supports multi-touch 

and multi-user interaction. 

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. 

The idea is that SixthSense tries to determine not only what someone is interacting with, 

but also how he or she is interacting with it. The software searches the internet for 

information that is potentially relevant to that situation, and then the projector takes over.  

All the work is in the software," says Dr Maes. "The system is constantly trying to figure 

out what's around you, and what you're trying to do. It has to recognize the images you see, 

track your gestures, and then relate it all to relevant information at the same time." 

The software recognizes 3 kinds of gestures: 

 Multitouch gestures, like the ones you see in Microsoft Surface or the iPhone -- 

where you touch the screen and make the map move by pinching and dragging.  

 Freehand gestures, like when you take a picture [as in the photo above]. Or, you 

might have noticed in the demo, because of my culture, I do a namaste gesture to start 

the projection on the wall.   

 Iconic gestures, drawing an icon in the air. Like, whenever I draw a star, show me the 

weather. When I draw a magnifying glass, show me the map. You might want to use 

other gestures that you use in everyday life. This system is very customizable.  

The technology is mainly based on hand gesture recognition, image capturing, processing, 

and manipulation, etc. The map application lets the user navigate a map displayed on a 

nearby surface using hand gestures, similar to gestures supported by multi-touch based 

systems, letting the user zoom in, zoom out or pan using intuitive hand movements. The 

drawing application lets the user draw on any surface by tracking the fingertip movements of 

the user’s index finger.   

DEMO PICTURES

Demonstration For Sixth Sense See Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWf4xS-28nU&t=225s

                                                                                   

-Amar Jondhalekar(Computer Engineer)