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MIT student turns his body into a computer
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created about 1 year ago | Tagged: |
Internaut
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The tech world has been buzzing for the past week over an MIT Media Lab student project which converts any surface - including the human body - into a touchpad that controls a mobile computer in your pocket. Using just $350 of off-the-shelf technology, Pranav Mistry created the device for the Fluid Interfaces group at the Media Lab.
The prototype was built from an ordinary webcam and a battery-powered 3M projector, with an attached mirror — all connected to an internet-enabled mobile phone. The setup, which costs less than $350, allows the user to project information from the phone onto any surface — walls, the body of another person or even your hand . . . The gestures can be as simple as using his fingers and thumbs to create a picture frame that tells the camera to snap a photo, which is saved to his mobile phone. When he gets back to an office, he projects the images onto a wall and begins to size them. When he encounters someone at a party, the system projects a cloud of words on the person's body to provide more information about him — his blog URL, the name of his company, his likes and interests.
Mistry and his colleagues have patented the device, which they believe will integrate nicely into next-generation mobiles that come equipped with projectors. I love the idea of dialing a phone from my hand, or taking pictures with finger gestures.
