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April - 2009 - issue > Tech Tracker
India-born digital geek develops MIT’s ‘Sixth Sense’
Eureka Bharali
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
The multi-touch genre is no more confined to the iPhone-likes. India-born Pranav Mistry, a researcher at the Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has pulled off a new technology, christened 'Sixth Sense', which can turn any flat surface into a touch-screen, including your hand. The pendant-like mobile device is bundled with a pocket projector, mirror and web camera.

The informations in this MIT patented technology is not confined to paper or the digital screen rather it communicates with the user. The device provides product and price comparison information, retrieve flight information to let the wearer know about delays, automatically pulls up related information from the Web when requested, and also clicks pictures when one frames a subject with one's fingers. The new technology also enables user to stop by any surface or wall and flick through the photos they have clicked. Analysts believe that with Sixth Sense available, Apple's iPhone and its likes will no more lure the technology geeks.

The device which costs around $350 (around Rs.17,500) to be built, has aroused a lot of interest among the IT giants like Microsoft, Google, Hewlett Packard and Samsung. Witnessing the increasing demand from Indian firms, the 28 year old Mistry maintains that he would want to make the prototype cheaper for India. Being cheaper may prove better bait for Sixth Sense to attract the tech savvies in India, a place where Apple's multi-touch crumpled.

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