Augmented reality

While on-screen augmented reality constitutes one of the major innovations, certain to modify our digital consumption over the next few years (check the first two videos: GE, Mini),

some MIT geeks have been exploring even more advanced technology, something you might call “live augmented reality”
The prototype is entitled “sixth sense”. The elaborate ensemble consists of your mobile’s internet connection paired with a webcam’n’projector “necklace”.
Imagine picking up a book on any shelf, and instantly getting every available information on this book, right on the cover, or reading about Obama’s speech in any newspaper, and instantly getting the video right on your paper page.
“sixth sense” basically allows you to transform any surface into an interface. Any book or supermarket product you’re observing becomes a tactile interface on which are projected information concerning the product or the company that made it.
This technology eliminates the intermediary product (mobile phone screen), that, so far, stood between us and the information.
Patty Maes, the scientist behind this innovation, suggests such technology will be able to feed us with information in the same organic way as do our five senses.

Needless to say…the possibilities are endless. And while democratization of such a technology might seem far in the future, it remains interesting to realize and visualize the coming habits of information consumption.