…New Gadgets Around You…

Wear Ur World (WUW)

MIT researcher Pattie Maes demonstrated a new gadget earlier this week at a technology conference in South California. It is called Wear Ur World (WUW), or 6th Sense and allows you to access information as though you always have a PC in front of you, but controlled by hand gestures.
What the researchers have done is combine a number of standard gadgets including a webcam, projector, and mobile phone, to form a brand new interaction experience. In its current form the battery-powered projector is attached to a hat, the webcam is hung around the neck (or also positioned on a hat), and the mobile phone provides the connection to the Internet.
The wearer uses hand gestures combined with the gadgets to perform actions. So, for example, they could make a circle over their wrist with the fingers of one hand. WUW would recognize this action and project a clock face on to their wrist. Make a picture frame with both your hands and WUW will take a picture as if it was a camera. Stand near a wall and you can get a projected desktop allowing you to open applications, view the pictures you’ve taken, or surf the ‘Net.
At the moment it is just a prototype system, but because it uses off-the-shelf components the cost of creating one is just $300 for the hardware involved.