TED2009: “Sixth Sense” device projects information on any surface, including your skin

The researchers at the MIT Media Lab are focused on human-machine relationships and on finding new ways people can use technology to their benefit. Sometimes their projects seem like the work of some wizards.

Pattie Maes’ “sixth sense” device set off a buzz when she showed it at the TED conference recently — even though it so early stage that it’s more hack then full prototype.

Maes and graduate student Pranav Mistry created the WUW - “Wear Ur World” – system using about $300 worth of store bought components: a small wearable camera, battery operated projector, a smart phone and colored plastic marker caps that are worn on the users fingers.

It’s a bit clunky — you couldn’t pass it off as jewelry — but still cool.

Maes, an associate professor, set out to create a device that would make it easy for people access and use networked information — our “sixth sense” — in making everyday decisions. The project’s website says it frees data from its traditional digital confines and “releases it into the world, seamlessly integrating information and reality.”

Photo/MIT Media Lab

What?

At TED, Maes showed users projecting relevant information, delivered from the Internet-enabeled smart phone, on a variety of surfaces. A user can manipulate the data by moving his capped fingers, which are tracked by the camera.

For instance, a user can access Amazon ratings, or reviews, about a book he picks up in a bookstore, check the status of his flight by aiming the device at his ticket or check the time on a watch face projected on his wrist.

“You can use any surface, including your hand if nothing else is available, and interact with the data,” Maes said. “It’s very much a work in progress. Maybe in 10 years we will be here with the ultimate sixth-sense brain implant.”

You can find out more about Maes’ work at the website of the lab’s fluid interfaces research group, which she directs, or see images of the “sixth sense” device in action.

TED2009: Siftables, cookie-size computers of the future

Imagine playing Scrabble or doing math equations with tiles that react to each other and to you. Or using the tiles to compose music. Or create a story.

Siftables were one of the coolest of several new and developing technologies shown at the TED conference last week in Long Beach, Calif.

A Siftable is an interactive computer the size of a cookie; each with a screen and wireless radio. They can play video and sound.

Creator David Merrill, a doctoral computer science student at the MIT Media Lab, said he was inspired by old fashioned blocks and their importance to spatial reasoning and learning.

He and his collaborators have re-imagined the computer interface, by asking what if they could replace the mouse — our “digital finger ” — with a tool that would let us “reach in with both hands and grasp information physically, arranging it the way we wanted.”

As Merrill demonstrated on stage, the Siftables interact with, and react to, each other. Tilt a block one direction to play video, the opposite to rewind it. No clicking or pushing of buttons.

One of Merrill’s most impressive applications is a music sequencing and live performance tool. Blocks are programmed for different functions — tempo, volume, percussion, lead and so on — and you arrange them to make music.

TED has just posted the video of Merrill’s 7-minute talk and demo here (sorry WordPress won’t let me embed it).

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), which draws some of the world’s leading scholars, technologists, designers and business leaders, is known for spotting future tech hits. In 2006, for instance, Jeff Han set the crowd whistling and gasping with the first public demo of his mulit-touch, multi-user interface screen. It’s the type that CNN and others used during primary and election night broadcasts to show voting trends, results and other information.

Keep an eye on Merrill and his new company, Taco Lab, which will be working on commercializing his research once he finishes his Ph.D this spring.

TED2009: Shai Agassi’s electric car dream

Running notes from the TED conference in Long Beach, CA.; first posted on www.stltoday.com, my newspaper’s website.

Shai Agassi has an audacious goal: Transform the United States into an electric car driving nation. Agassi, once a rising star in the technology world, spelled out his vision for accomplishing this at the TED conference Thursday afternoon.

The key, he said, is building electric cars that are affordable and convenient enough that 99 percent of the population can own them. They need to be cars that are as good as those people are driving today.

“Affordable is not a $40,000 car and convenient is not one that you drive for one hour and charge for eight,” Agassi said. “So the question is how do you do that , within the science we have today, within the economy we have today and how do you do it from the consumer up?”

Agassi’s answer: People own the cars, but not the batteries, which are costly and have limited charging life. Under his plan, there would be would be charging stations and battery-swap stations everywhere. “You create the network before the cars show up,” he said.

People basically would buy miles for their cars. “A whole new business model. You’ll pay for miles like you pay for your cell phone,” Agassi said.

He estimates it would cost about eight cents a mile when his start-up company, Better Place, brings the first cars to market in 2010 and will drop to two cents a mile by 2020.

Agassi’s company is working with the governments of Denmark and Israel to build the charging network for such a system. Nissan-Renault has pledged to spend $1.5 billion building the cars. He said he is focusing his efforts to bring the system to the United States on Hawaii and San Francisco.

Agassi, an Israeli entrepreneur and software engineer by training, was on the verge of becoming CEO of the German software giant SAP when he resigned to pursue this project.

You can find details of Agassi’s plan on his website and you can see the TED conference’s blog, photo and Twitter feeds here.

TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, is an annual conference that draws some of the world’s leading scholars, scientists and business and technology figures.

TED2009: Bill Gates on philanthropy

Running notes from the TED conference in Long Beach, CA.; first posted on www.stltoday.com, my newspaper’s website.

Bill Gates gave the opening session of the TED conference today a peek at his new life as a full-time philanthropist, focusing on two of his top priorities: global health and education.

As the CEO and founder of MIcrosoft, Gates had a reputation as a ruthless competitor with a laser focus on his business. In his wide-ranging talk today, Gates seemed relaxed, but no less intent on success.

“I think there are some very important problems that we don’t work on naturally,” because the market does not drive scientists, government and others to focus on them, he said.

He described his foundation’s work to eradicate malaria and the importance of developing good teachers.

His foundation has funded initiatives to improve education for nine years, and experience that convinced him that the key is “making great teachers.”

The foundation set out to determine how much variation there is in teacher quality and found it was “unbelievable,” Gates said. “A top quartile teacher will increase the performance of their class by over 10 percent a year.”

The U.S. education system does not reward these teachers or find ways to transfer their methods to other teachers, he said. “But I’m optimistic,” he added. He briefly listed steps to address the problems, including more systematic measurement of teachers’ performance.

In a brief post-talk interview onstage with TED Curator Chris Anderson, the subject turned to the economy. Gates said he thought it was “good that the mood was bleak” at last week’s annual World Economic Forum summit in Davos, Switzerland.

“We’re going through a period of years where a 50-year expansion of credit is contracting,” he said. People should stop expecting that the government to magically change that because that would just delay the economic reckoning, Gates said.

“I know we are going to get past it,” he said. “But I think we have three, four, five years that will be very tough.”

Anderson asked Gates what he wanted his legacy to be, setting off some gentle sparring. “I don’t think anyone optimizes for having a good funeral,” Gates said, prompting Anderson to ask him if the philanthropy is a hobby.
“I’m as engaged in the new work as I’ve been in anything,” Gates responded. “It’s because of the day-to-day activity and the goals. It’s not about legacy.” He said it is fun to work on the problems and “fun when you achieve these ambitious goals. In that sense, it’s magic in the same way software was.”

The full video of Gates’ talk is now posted on the TED site, along with live Twitter and photo feeds from the conference.

NOTE: TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, is an annual conference that draws some of the world’s leading scholars, scientists and business and technology figures. I’ll be posting reports here on some of the 50-plus “talks” an array of speakers are giving at this week’s meeting.