Whether it proves to be an interaction that will benefit the daily needs of humans or turns out to get the entire world into a state of virtual distraction, the new era now dawning can be referred to as the “Sixth Sense” phase of technology. What it actually is?
A deep analysis of the advantages or disadvantages of this new era will follow, but let me first reveal what “gesture controlling” is to clarify for you the points required to understand better the new era of “Sixth Sense”.
Gesture controlling is known in computer science as converting our gestures into mathematical algorithms so that our devices can understand us. This way of connection provides a way for computers to understand humans with conversations driven by gestures or other movements of the body. In a way this is a development that moves well beyond the primitive interaction of text-input interface.
We recently had a hands-on chance to use gestures to control our Samsung devices, especially using S4, S5, and S6 or the Samsung TV hub. There exist two types of gesture control: “online” and “offline”. Online control is based on real time movement of your hands and at the same time takes place on the computer. With the offline version, the device reacts after the motion is completed.
What really is “Sixth Sense”?
Now that you know how gesture control is done, you can understand what the sixth sense will bring us. Sixth sense is, at present, still a prototype containing a camera, a mirror, and a pocket projector. All these hardware items are wearable. The function of the projector is to convert the environment that surrounds us into a projected interface giving us the ability to click on a wall, a door, windows, the body, and everywhere else. The camera’s function is to track gestures and physical objects by using computer-vision techniques. The prototype also consists of fiducials or Color Pointers that can be worn on the finger and have different functions, mainly limiting the clickable area defined by the projector. Moving these fiducials equates to tracking gestures. This also makes it possible to make pictures just by making rectangular shapes with our fingers. Sixth sense allows multi-touching with our fingers.
Advantages of “Sixth Sense”
Every new device that we make has its own advantages and disadvantages. I would like to point out the main advantages of this future prototype. Every single day we use our mobile devices to call someone, or to make pictures, or we use projectors for our lessons. This new technology will convert all those typing motions to gestures. We will call someone just by projecting the number pad wherever we want and clicking on the numbers, of course not projecting directly on the device. We will take pictures by signaling with our fingers. It will help us to show google maps on the wall or on the road so we can follow directions easily. Also this prototype will allow older people to watch live video while they are looking through the news on the newspaper.
The disadvantages of “Sixth Sense”
As long as this is still a prototype we can only speculate about some of the disadvantages of this new device. For the moment the biggest disadvantage that I can see is that it will probably be worn like a necklace. The projector will be right next to our hearts, and using it to make phone calls will send electromagnetic waves directly into zones of cardiac sensitivity, triggering risks of heart attack or stroke. Another potential disadvantage will be loss of privacy. We do not know if this device will be programmed as a highly secure one. In the future, hackers may learn how to violate our privacy through the small camera mounted on the device. We already know that the NSA (National Security Agency) has spied on every single mobile phone. Carrying this device with us may ease their path toward spying on every moment of our lives, including the intimate ones.
Firstly we need to use the device once to know how we can improve on it for future users, and also improve the interaction with the environment. To be truly breath-taking, the device should have features that will be unique compared to the ones that we are using right now.
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