MIT Grad To Make Digital "SixthSense" Open Source

yuveraj writes to mention that Pranav Mistry, the brain behind the innovative "SixthSense" application demoed earlier this year, plans to open source the technology in order to get this to the streets faster. "Mistry’s decision has meaning beyond Sixth Sense. The desire of inventors is always to get their work into the market as quickly as possible. Usually this means waiting for it to be turned into a useful, profitable invention. Mistry is bypassing this by going straight to open source. There is no report on which license he will use, but whichever one he does choose he has put paid to the canard that open source and innovation are incompatible, for all time."

Comments

paid to the canard?

[poetmatt]

Is it me, or does this expression make almost no sense? Regardless of the intent I don't get why it follows with "that open source and innovation are incompatible, for all time."

Can someone translate this expression about canard?

I don't get it...

[gabereiser]

I mean, the tech is cool, don't get me wrong. Having dealt with multitouch for some years now I get it. But seriously, would anyone want to strap on a backpack, attach a bunch of gizmos to his chest, tape colors to his fingers, only to display PRE-PROGRAMMED information? I mean, the video of him is all marketing gimmick. A preloaded video of Barack Obama on the newspaper, clever bit of camera trickery. I don't see this gaining traction anymore than those wearable computers with the little lcd screen in your eye glasses. I would rather have a system that uses Augmented Reality. This "contraption" was deemed open source by it's creator because it's creator knows no one is willing to fork over the cash to bring this to market because it's a terrible concept.

Re:I don't get it...

[DeadDecoy]

It's not a terrible concept, it's simply a solution looking for a problem.

But seriously, would anyone want to strap on a backpack, attach a bunch of gizmos to his chest, tape colors to his fingers, only to display PRE-PROGRAMMED information?

The object he's showing is a prototype and will naturally have a larger form-factor relative to any final product. The reason for the backpack is to have something to hold his dev machine which runs the software. This can easily be put into a smaller computer or micro-controller at some later point in time. And all those gizmos amount to the coordination of multiple devices: web cam and projector, simply because no one has thought to combine the items yet. Again, once there is a market for the combined features, products will probably follow. As for the pre-programmed information, it's certainly true that this performs a limited number of operations, but common, this is only one guy demoing his prototype. There could be plenty of additional operations once this product is open sourced. You just have no imagination

Imagine if such a device was attached to 'the cloud' at some wi-fi cafe. I could be browsing some journal articles projected onto the table, and upon finding an interesting item, send it to a friend somewhere else in the world. Feeling the need to discuss, we could then have a video conference on that table. Once done, I might load up pong and wait until my food is served. A lot of this is a "marketing gimmick" because the uses of such a device have not yet been fully explored. There's a huge pipeline of products and software interfaces that need to be hacked out before its ready for the public, but it certainly holds potential. You just have to make it cheap enough for the average consumer and find that killer app. Personally I wouldn't mind such a device in place of a Kindle/Nook with a decent reference manager, and would probably hack away at the open source to make that happen.

You're probably against this because you have no idea of how it could be useful or popular. But don't worry, a lot of other, smarter people will probably get it done for you.

Simple English Slashdot, Please

[TheModelEskimo]

he has put paid to the canard

Now there's a new one. *fumbles through idiom dictionary*

Re:Pilots are being taken out

[vlm]

Um... We do have fully automated drones flying around, both with and without bombs attached.

We do have fully automated drones flying around, both with and without pilots attached...

You'd be surprised what a good autopilot can do. Did you know the space shuttle, using 70s tech, lands itself, with the only human interaction being pushing the landing gear doors? No kidding hands completely off from orbit to runway using 40 year old tech?

Media Lab? Unless it comes from the 1st floor...

[snsh]

The stuff that comes out of upper floors of the Media Lab generally don't commercialize well. Anyone remember Charmed Technologies? A couple of grads from the same group tried to commercialize wearable computers - the company didn't survive the bubble collapsing. The first floor of the Media Lab is different; they're more like traditional researchers and work on things like e-ink. But the upper floors generate demo after demo, that look cute and generate press, but not much commercial value.

Re:lol

[ect5150]

I've never gotten paid for anything I've written. I give it all away. The reward is called "Pride" As a society we simply need to find a way to make sure people like Pranav Mistry have gainful employment while they devlop things like this. As long as I have a decent job that pays my bills and afords me the time to work on software, I will continue to do so. But when employment barely pays my rent and my managers expect me to come in early and work late to the point that I have no time to do anything rewarding at all, everyone suffers because I can not continue to work on things that may or may not be profitable in the end. In my opinion the biggest obstacle in the way of innovation is profit.

I think you misunderstand the idea of what profit is. Re-read what you wrote,

"to the point that I have no time to do anything rewarding at all"

How are you profiting there?

"As long as I have a decent job that pays my bills and afords me the time to work on software"

You are profiting here. But by your logic, if profit stands in the way of innovation, your having a job would stand in the way of your working on this software.

"As a society we simply need to find a way to make sure people like Pranav Mistry have gainful employment while they develop things like this."

Not everyone values this as much as you may. If what he develops is truly valued by others, they will actually pay for it. You will give up some of your money - which came from time and effort on your part - to compensate him for his time and effort. Otherwise, its just talk. It would be as if I say I want a better environment, but I wouldn't want to pay for recycling. This stuff doesn't just come for free - its not some boon society has received - just as your time and effort probably don't come for free. Its fine if you want to work for free, but then the cost is all on you. Most people expect to be paid for their work. If someone wants to come get my recycling without me paying for it, I'm fine with that. But don't come to me later claiming you cannot afford your own bills and "barely pay your rent." That's how you know if I value it or not.

I know plenty of people may disagree, but then you are free to hire him for yourself to keep me quiet.