SixthSense’s Pranav Mistry Uses Cameras to Read Gestures
BODY LANGUAGE: Say good-bye to your remote, your joystick, your mouse. Soon you'll be waving your fingers to control everything from TVs to thermostats. Gesture technology may be a multibillion-dollar market by 2015. | Photograph by Bob O'Connor
Pranav MistryResearch Assistant, MIT Media LabCambridge, Massachusetts
Mistry, 29, invented SixthSense, a platform that uses a small camera to read and follow users' gestures.
"In computing, everything happens inside this rectangular screen. I want to get the pixels out, paint the world, and allow us to interact with it. The system can turn anything into an interactive surface, from a table in Starbucks to the palm of your hand. There are endless consumer applications, but what excites me is how this can help people. A man who cannot speak communicates with sign language, but the average person doesn't know that language. SixthSense, if equipped with speakers, can recognize the gestures and form the words -- it will speak for him. We are giving him a sixth sense that he was missing."