Slashdot Mirror
MIT Researchers Create a Cheap "6th Sense" Device
thefickler writes "MIT researchers have combined a mobile projector with a webcam and mobile phone to create a device that draws information from the environment. For example, the gadget recognizes products on store shelves and can provide product and price comparison information. The sixth-sense device was cobbled together from common parts costing just $300. While the gadget is not being primed for mass release, it represents a forward-thinking way of blending technology with our environment."
Needs more EyeTap.
"For example, the gadget recognizes products on store shelves and can provide product and price comparison information."
Finally, we've discovered all 6 senses: Sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and targeted marketing! =D
The enemies of Democracy are
sight, hearing, touch, feel, taste, comparison shop? This isn't a sixth sense, no matter how you spin it. at least i hope that the heightened consumer knowledge would not be considered a valid way of perceiving the world.
I can't help but think of The Game.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
Further analysis shows that the heart is actually a team of codemonkeys madly devoting all waking hours to understand the hundreds of different data formats needed to supply even the most basic integration.
Seriously tho, the main cost to developing this would be getting integrated with all the different potential data providers. Recognizing a physical bar code is easy. Looking up the current price at nearby retailers? More difficult.
The 6th sense is what the corporation gets by tracking your ever query.
MIT researchers have combined a mobile projector with a webcam and mobile phone to create a device that draws visual information from the environment.
Fixed that for ya.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
I already have a sixth external sense... it's the sense of acceleration in my inner ear, colloquially known as the sense of balance. That one's just as important as the other senses.
Of course, there are other more minor senses that are subsets of the sense of touch, like heat and cold, which are actually different mechanisms, but those are arguable as truly separate senses. There's also the sense of body position, whose name escapes me, but that's not an external sense.
What was TFA about, again? :)
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
using a webcam you can get a picture, using the internet on a mobile you can get information, the technology has been there for ages to be able to get as much extra information as you want about whatever is in front of the camera, the only limiting factor is surely the software needed to be writen to identify items and then collect the appropriate information from the internet. This doesnt seem much different to saying that with a webcam and a mobile, you can identify them and pull up their facebook profile, software to take advantage of available hardware has become alot more complex to write
Scanning a bar code and looking up info and prices on the internet is such a a cool idea. In fact, it's such a super-cool idea that it won a prize. Last year. On Android. See:
http://code.google.com/android/adc_gallery/
and
http://www.android.com/market/#app=compareeverywhere
For a second there I thought that someone had finally invented the tricorder.
"Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand." - Mark Twain
Ok, I'm getting seriously disappointed with slashdot. A story about a webcam, cellphone and automatically look up crap online? Fine. The technical aspects are interesting; but sixth-sense slant? Kill it before it breeds.
I have a god-damn cellphone with camera and internet and I don't think it's a sixth-sense feature when i use it to look something up. COME ON; it isn't 1971!
By fans of the Fifth Element
Programmed in Forth
Costing you the third of your hundred dollar bills
Sold by advertisers with second sight
Redundant by the tine the first is sold
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Kill it before it breeds.
I for one welcome our cel%@#(*NO CARRIER
"For example, the gadget recognizes products on store shelves and can provide product and price comparison information."
Sounds like going shopping with my Mother.
See all those other people around you, you know, the ones who are just shopping, as though that's all that life means to them? They're dead, or the next worst thing. This device might not help you see them directly, but I suppose by doing all of this work for you quickly and effectively it might free up some of your conventional senses and allow you to notice them when otherwise you'd be too busy.
I work in retail, and some mornings I really do wonder if the zombie apocalypse has finally come, or if this is just another day at work.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
It's a device NAMED 6th Sense device... That's what they called the project.
You are acting like they claim to have FOUND a 6th sense...
Seriously, over-thinking is a sign of lesser intelligence.
They're walking around like regular people. Spouting marketing verbage. They can't see anything else, they only see a marketing opportunity. They hardly know that their product they're trying to push is just a bunch of hot air...
I see them all the time, they're everywhere.
Dude, this is slashdot. The story is not about the webcam, cellphone and the mobile projector, but about the MIT geeks using all that put together with duct tape and going to the supermarket.
Think about all those hot hispanic MILFs in the supermarket looking to those geeks walking in with some weird duct-tape-cellphone-webcam hats?
nice job/ RTFA next time. It's not just a cellphone with camera and internet.
Am I the only one who read the headline and said MIT created a way to see dead people!? Of course it would be MIT...
"The best way to accelerate a Macintosh is at 9.8m/sec^2" -Marcus Dolengo
Holy crap! A camera on a phone!?!?! What will they think of next!!!
Your cellphone isn't Slashdot-worthy because it wasn't designed by MIT Media Lab.
Seriously, so much effort goes into creating devices for comparison shopping when you are in a store, but the store rarely if ever has the best price. If it's a small purchase (e.g., a book), you can decide if it's worth $5 to buy it in person instead of Amazon without having to look it up. If it's a big purchase, you better be comparison shopping before you go. Okay, maybe there's some value to having online reviews available of books while you are browsing in the store, but how long before B&N or Borders offer that service themselves?
So did anyone else read the article and think of the gargoyle rig from Snow Crash?
Yes, that same O.S. just whooped the two most recent whitebread offerings from Microsoft like Obama whooped the other two white morons in the presidential race. It's clear that what you're trying to say is "speak softly and carry a big dick" or "malt licka is quicka".
I'm Tyrone the Linux Nigger, and I approved this message.
On my G1 I use SnapTell and ShopSavvy for that. And I didn't even go to MIT. Just to T-Mobile.
Why do they call it the sixth sense?
Wouldn't tenth sense be a better claim? (albeit marketting)
What really annoys me about this is that there are already nine recognized physical senses, two interoceptive ones, six exteroceptive and two feedback senses.
I still can't understand why some who claim to be scientists still think in terms of the limited "5 senses" model which has been outdated for more than a century.
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
I'm much more disappointed that this kind of thing comes from MIT, rather than it's being featured on Slashdot!
To show at TED, MIT could have build a something better than this.
so this is a seventh sense, not SIXTH.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Your body has always had six senses: Sight, Touch, Hearing, Smell, Taste, and Balance. Why the tradition has been to claim there are only five is beyond me.
No. Well...maybe. Actually, yes. It really just depends.
Not really a predecessor/competitor, but a great PSA nonetheless.
It's called "gaydar", and you only have it because you too are gay.
Man, even the trolls are getting dumber.
Leave it to the extras. All I need is a sphere, bolt and cord :-)
I'd hook it up so it would emit a tiny electric discharge every time it senses something I should be warned about, a tingle if you will. I'll call it my spidey sense. It would also help me rationalize getting a tattoo like this.
http://www.geekologie.com/2008/04/23/spiderman-tat-1.jpg
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
This sort of technology seems to be the first step towards a tricorder... albeit a primitive one designed to help you be a "better" consumer. Now they just need to add this into a visor (like the ones you can plug into your ipod or whatever), and you'd have a HUD.
Not always what it's cracked up to be.
Get out of my life!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
The only information I want to "draw from the environment" is the light emitted from the ladies' shower at my gym.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Get out of my life!! I do not want/need Minority Report- like adverts!
I'm to the point of developing and making what I think I need/want.
*hint: it has nothing to do with current marketing. "I will research, and make up my own mind!!"
GO THE FUCK Away, Maarketdroids!!...You aare wasting time and resources on me!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
make you see dead people?
Satire covering this kind of connectivity. It was target towards young adults but is well written.
http://www.amazon.com/Feed-M-T-Anderson/dp/0763622591
So... they've resurrected the CueCat?
The only way to tell the difference between a hamster and a gerbil is that the hamster has more white meat.
Umm humans already have a sixth sense.
it's called orientation and if you take it away people get fucked up.
read more here:
http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/balance/balance_disorders.asp
-S
And there are those with a seventh sense whom I admire greatly: Sense of Humor.
My wife, like so many others, seems to have a natural sixth (seventh?) sense for all kinds of bargains and sales. Thus, I fail to see the value of purchasing such a device (unless it's part of a bargain)..
device that draws information from the environment
I thought it was a story about someone trying to patent the 5 senses we already have.
Actually useful new senses include:
1. Timing
2. Proportion
3. Justice
4. When people are lying
5. Trouble (e.g., via scary background music)
6. Due Measure
Sensing bargains? Not so much.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Some time ago I saw a television program about extreme body modifications, and I saw one guy who had a small round magnet which he put inside of a silicone shell and implanted into one of his fingertips. The magnet would vibrate when in the proximity of an electric field. Basically, he could use it to sense when a circuit was on, and could tell what frequency the power was.
Seems much more useful than the drivel in TFA.
Anyone that has ever written any computer vision code knows that this thing is just vaporware. It might be interesting if it actually worked, but I don't believe that a cheap webcam attached to a battery powered cell phone is going to be able to quickly:
1. Determine I'm holding up a book.
2. Extract the text from the cover.
3. Accurately produce the actual text from the image.
That's ok, though, because the thing should run out of battery power in about 2 minutes anyway.
Does anyone have a link to the TED conference talk? I can't find the video on the TED website. Thanks!
Think about something like this plugged into hyperlocal shopping indexes. It would finally drive prices through the floor as you could have 2, 3, or 50 of these things doing your shopping for you, consulting your list of barred outlets/products, and choosing the cheapest of all your shopping list from the rest. The trade-off for most bargain hunters was often the time aspect of running to many stores, but something like this with a decent navigation software bundle could change that.