Slashdot Mirror
Demo of a New "Sixth Sense" Technology
TEDChris writes "Here's an intriguing attempt at a versatile new tech device that tries to augment the wearer's five senses. It comes out of Patty Maes's group at the MIT Media Lab. By combining a computerized personal projector with a camera and linking both to the Net, a host of surprising new applications becomes possible. This 8-minute demo created a lot of buzz at TED last month and was posted online today. Would love to know what the Slashdot community makes of it."
If you tell a five-year-old about his sense of vision, she won't understand either -- unless you said the word "vision" before.
"Equilibrium" is not a difficult word. You simply have to teach it -- five-year-olds lack two very important skills, they aren't psychic, and they don't tend to initiate cognitive learning.
But hey, as an adult, the number of times I talk to clients or people and have to say "emplain it to me as though I'm six" is very large. A lot of people like to say things, having no idea what they mean. And when you ask them to explain to you what they mean, it becomes very apparent that they have no idea.
I have one client (to make this relevant here) who likes to refer to her new web-site as being in "beta". She also likes to discuss features in terms of the "database". But what she says makes no sense. So I'd ask her "what do you mean by 'beta'?". And she'd say "you know, 'beta'. I don't know, 'beta'. it's your industry, you know what I must mean." And I'd ask "what do you mean by 'database'?", and she'd say "you, database, like, the whole thing."
It turns out that she used 'database' to mean any part of her web application that allowed her to see information. And she meant 'beta' as the first launch. Clearly, those are awy off. 'database' means the storage and manipulation of the data, not the reports and the presentation. 'beta' means it's still broken and has bugs, and we're letting external users find them. The confusion, of course, came when she said things like "we need to change the formatting of the database" and "it has to be bug-free for the beta launch".
So now we have an agreement. If she can't define a word, she can't use it.
Children aren't stupid, and they aren't ignorant. They're simply inexperienced.
You say many adults can't conceive of any more than ten digits. Well, they also can't conceive of any fewer than ten digits. And it's purely because no one ever told them, and they never tried. Children haven't had a chance to try, and most adults don't know enough to tell them.
Teach children about "equilibrium" and they'll understand. Don't and they won't. It's that simple. But I promise you one thing: if you don't know what the word means, you won't be able to teach it; not to children and not to adults. All you'll be able to do is to spread the confusion.
So, who taught you?