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Week 10 [29.05-04.06.2017] - SixthSense – when real world mix with virtual one

SixthSense’ is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information. It’s is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. Now, virtual world was separated from the real one, we are using smartphones, laptops, tablets and many other devices.

Link to the talk with Pranav Mistry – an inventor of SixthSense:



Pranav Mistry says: “I think that integrating information to everyday objects will not only help us to get rid of the digital divide, the gap between these two worlds, but will also help us, in some way, to stay human, to be more connected to our physical world. And it will actually help us not end up being machines sitting in front of other machines.

Do you agree with his opinion?
What do you think about the process of involving the virtual world into reality?
Do you think it’s dangerous or not at all and we should strive for fusion of these two worlds?

Comments

Unknown said…
I think that his opinion is marketing babbling, but I think that integrating virtual reality with our world might be useful for humans, as long as we have option not to use it. Problem will start when someone will think about having some kind of implants implanted in our bodies. Than problems will start. As experience shows, produces do have backdoors to our devices and can spy on us.
Magdalena Popek said…
I think this line between real and virtual world is necessary. We stay human living in real world, not merging RL with VR. Mixing them will result in distracting people, for example when driving, as people don't know when to stop. It is a very interesting topic actually. Because on one hand people want to develop the technology we use, but on the other hand we should know the limit and stick to it, not push it further. We know the difference between real life and virtual reality but what about future generations? Children in the USA kill each other 'cause they think the other child will get back to life. What will happen if we blur the line between RL and VR even more?
Unknown said…
Of course it should be the line between virtual life and this real one, and everybody should know it very well, but basically virtual reality in our lives I consider really useful. I don't know what will happen with our privacy, at the present stage we are being spied pretty much with our phones, computers, credit cards...I think with virtual reality or smart devices all around us, there will be no more privacy for nobody at all. But I think that this is something that we cannot help and should just get over with.
Anonymous said…
I agree with opinion that it would help us stay humans. This whole vision sounds like a movie story, but let's be honest, it will come true soon.
In my opinion everything used in an unappropriate way can be dangerous. But joining virtual world with reality could be very helpful and safe in most of cases.
I think that our virtual and real lives should be somewhat separated, but it’s obvious that they have impact on each other.
Mixing them is our reality but I think that merging them completely may have really negative impact.
I think that we should always have a possibility to quit our virtual life, like deleting our accounts on social media and switching from smartphone to the regular phone.

Unknown said…
Awesome guy! Now this may be not so surprising, but this is a speech from 2009, so I am full of admiration for this man. Looking at inventions like google glass or kinect, people are striving to mix the digital world with reality. I agree with him and I don't see the danger of mixing these two worlds. It's great that the devices that he has made are very cheap in realize just like this from mouse. It works like leap motion but we could made this themselves. In my opinion it's great that he shares such knowledge for free. I think his research could be a great opportunity to create interfaces for the disabled people and make it easier for them to navigate the digital world.
Unknown said…
Mixed reality is a next-generation digital experience driven by the real-world presence of ‘intelligent virtual objects,’ enabling people to interact with these objects within their real world field of view. Microsoft refers to Windows Mixed Reality as a platform which comprises of their technology. They even went as far to say there will be opaque headsets(like the Acer) and transparent headsets(Like Hololens). Personally I’m glad they did that, I really do not see why there needs to be this sort of separation between the two. Microsoft is currently leading in the future of AR/VR and I just hope they don’t mess it up cause it’s not like Google and Apple is waiting on Microsoft.

When it comes to advantages, I can see a lot of them, for example:
1) Sharing real-world virtual workspace - Bringing together multiple mixed reality devices in a shared space will open up new collaboration options. With mixed reality, team members can be networked into a shared virtual world overlaying the physical. In this connected environment, they can collaboratively work together on the virtual objects and have the items interact with each other and the real word.

2) Remote experts (over-the-shoulder coaching) - Many enterprises struggle to address all of the support requests from workers requiring expert advice. Mixed reality offers a hands-free method to access an expert quickly and inexpensively.
Unknown said…
This speech is from 2009, and this is the last thing you would find about SixthSense. Pranav Mistry sad, that he will provide all the opensource software for manufacturers, but it seems like it wasn't enough to release (or just continue develop) this device. Now 8 years are gone, and I don't think that SixthTense will magically appear on market.
Combining virtual reality with real world can be really useful in education purposes. Like simulation where you learn flying a jet, or driving a car and many other. Of course there is also the dark side of learning in VR, like filling of being immune to everything. I thing we should not fuse this two worlds, it could make us paranoid or even stop recognizing the difference between them.
There is not a simple answer here. You have Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality which falls somewhere in the middle. VR puts you into a simulated environment (whether based on the real world or not), cutting off your vision of the external world around you. AR overlays information and digital artifacts on the real world - you are looking at the space around you with additional information. Mixed Reality is like AR on steroids. You can still see the world around you, but you have much more than an overlay of information, with hologram-like objects.
So there is a difference between AR and Mixed Reality, but the line is very blurred.
Within a year (two at most), we’ll see some agreement on terms and Mixed Reality will mean something like holographic computing or it will all just fall under a larger umbrella of Augmented Reality.
AR and MR can improve our daily life by making more information available for us, for example by showing description of some antique or visual representation which way we should go to reach some location.

VR at the same time as a world simulation can bring a lot of fun e.g. during playing video games.

This is technology same as everything else, and it can be useful/nice to play with. We should accept it and make use of it, since it can make our life easier.
Unknown said…
Awesome technology, such a pity, that we still don't have it available at the market.. I guess It could be cool thing for many in many life aspects. For example for kids teaching, for disabled people, for those who is somehow isolated. You don't need to buy and carry several devices - just one and simple. I just don't understand - why we still don't have it?
Of course it could be harmful and dangerous - like every technology, that gets to the wrong hands. But it also could be useful. And I would be excited if I get a chance to try it.
Vyvyan said…
I cannot agree with him completely although he is right in some points. I think that process of involving VR in real life for educational purpouses and for fun (gaming/movies etc.) is a good idea but, only for these purpouses. We should not strive for fusion of these two. Why? Because it bares the risk of loosing oneself in virtual reality.
Unknown said…
Pretty cool stuff. We are dependant on virtual reality more and more so it is only natural to expand it and mix both worlds even further. To our benefit of course. Where do we draw the line? How far it will impact our interaction with physical world and between other people? Time will show but the tendency is that it's becomeing more virtual and less physical.
Integrating virtual reality with real one is our future. I can't wait to see that future it will be really interesting. Number of opportunities that can be achieved is incredible. This process of connecting virtual and real world is kind of crucial for improvement in technology we can see how many car crashes happen because od people using their phones, if they could use special vr glasses their would not lose their focus. As I said before this is our future if we like it or not and of course it brings some threats, like if someone hack your device he will see and hear everything you see and hear everything about you but it can happen to our phones nowadays.
Unknown said…
I don't think I can fully agree. Recently we observe a very disturbing trend of people constantly using mobile devices, sometimes even giving up on a human interaction as they're completely focused on the virtual world. I'm afraid trying to remove the gap between real and virtual world will make the virtual world even more accessible which might have a negative influence on people.
However if Pranav develops a software or machine that could help people who have a speech disorder this could be an amazing and beneficial achievement.
Unknown said…
I think that better idea would be to wear glasses with augmented reality rather then to wear this mini-projector on your own chest. What if it will turn over? Or you don't want to look like a geek? Maybe someone just realized that?
Bartosz Łyżwa said…
Thank you for this article with amazing video attached. I agree with him but not in 100% but let me tell you why. It's right that mechanics, electronics help us but waht problems could appear if those tools will run out? Will we only miss them? I don't whink so and it's a big problem in my opision. Just try thow out your smartphone for a... one day. In a short - those tools are useful but we mustn't be addicted of them.
Unknown said…
Oh yeah, because we haven't been there already, and it wasn't proven how incredibly gimmicky and useless gesture navigation is in the digital space. Innovation for the sake of innovation usually doesn't lead anywhere good. I'm not strictly against the idea of blending reality and the digital world, but for now it's actually easier and more convenient to press a couple of buttons than to swing your arms wildly hoping that the program can recognize whatever you're trying to do. Also, a guy trying to explain anything digital by using newspapers as examples comes of as funny, by the time the technology he's talking about is developed enough to actually physically press will most likely be dead.
Mixing reality with virtual life can be dangerous for some people, because they easily lose control of their life. On the other hand, we can use this technology in education or in medicie for example. It's all about balance.
Unknown said…
Some time ago I read a book about modified "humans" who bought and implemented information about whole world/matematics etc. Of course there was huge difference between bought inteligence of wealthy people and the poor ones who couldn't afford it. That's why I'm sceptic to such ideas, it's kind of unrealistic for me.
Ihor Ahnianikov said…
Mixing and improving reality is a great idea, but there should be a choice. Augmented reality is a powerful concept that may improve our lives - imagine if you're walking down the street somewhere abroad and all signs are already translated, you see the navigation and locations of places you're interested in. Currently we have to use a smartphone to find this information and merge it with reality.

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