Before you even ask about uses for this just enjoy it for what it is... Bloody marvelous.
Designed by MIT's Pattie Maes SIXth Sense attempts to create a new digital sense for humans. The fantastic device augments the physical world around us with digital information using natural hand gestures to deliver and shape how the information is viewed. The framing of a view using only your fingers can capture a photo to be viewed on any surface, whilst the outlining a circle on your wrist will deliver a digital watch... Awesomeness.
It works by using a camera and a tiny projector mounted on a hat. The camera sees what you see and projects any surfaces or objects you are interacting with. The prototype uses an ordinary webcam and a battery-powered projector, connected with an internet enabled mobile phone. Apparently this prototype costs less than $350.
What excites me about SIXth Sense is that it pulls together multiple technologies to create something quite spectacular, the true definition of creativity. In the last couple of years we have been wowed by technological advances such as QR codes, augmented reality and Microsoft Surface and now along comes something that combines elements of each in a brilliant way.
It's all very Tom Cruise in Minority Report, futuristic, full of possibilities and probably closer to a reality than you might think on first viewing. Whist the idea of walking around with a projector on your hat may seem unthinkable one of the more talked about additions to the handset in mobile at this year's Mobile World Congress was a phone with a projector in it.