The future is nigh.
Here at Tandem, we’ve been marveling over the creative and mind-blowing uses of the somewhat new augmented reality (AR) technology. (If you’re scratching your head, click here. And here http://creativity-online.com/work/google-favorite-places/18159 and here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91fXp1P5aoY for Google Favorite Places and Lego AR examples. Think Star Wars holograms…and beyond.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality
So, in keeping with the Star Wars theme, a gentleman named Pranav Mistry (http://www.pranavmistry.com/) from Palanpur, India, is like a Jedi Knight in this world. He’s taking AR and making us gape at it. (Note to selves: No gaping whilst drinking hot coffee.) Mistry is the genius behind SixthSense (http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/), 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.”
Basically, this device allows a user to interact with digital images in ways never before possible…maybe even imagined. Think Harry Potter’s Daily Prophet’s moving images were neat-o? Then how about live news video on the front page of your pub? Don’t have a keyboard? Just print out of a piece of paper for an instant video-imaged keyboard on which you can type. Phone number pad…projected on the pad of your hand! I may be oversimplifying, but this technology is here and now and being refined so that one day soon, AR will become more than just a new science that we’re gawking over. AR may soon be the rule rather than the exception.
We can almost hear George Lucas giggling like a schoolgirl.
On another note, where did Mistry find his inspiration to create this amazingly revolutionary technology? In his words:
“Exposure to fields like design to technology and from art to psychology gave me a quite nice/interesting viewpoint to the world. I love to see technology from design perspective and vice versa. This vision reflects in almost all of my projects and research work as well. In short, I do what I love and I love what I do. I am a 'Desigineer.’”
So maybe someday Tandem will be hologramming it up with our projects, too. Because all the best projects come from the best design.