Pranav Mistry- The Inventor of SixthSense Technology

Pranav Mistry is an Indian computer scientist and Inventor. At present, he is the head of Think Tank Team and Vice President of Research at Samsung. He is best known for his work on SixthSense and Samsung Galaxy Gear. 

Some of his other work, Pranav has invented :

Mouseless – an invisible computer mouse

SPARSH – a novel way to copy-paste data between digital devices

Quickies – intelligent sticky notes that can be searched, located and can send reminders and messages

Blinkbot - a gaze and blink controlled robot

A pen that can draw in 3D

A public map that can act as Google of physical world.

Mistry is best known for his work on Sixth Sense - Comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. SixthSense bridges the gap between the digital devices and the physical world. The device allows you make any object like wall, paper or even your body the screen and interact with the same using hand based gestures. Draw, pinch in & out of images or drawings, all with hand based gestures. You can also use a simple gesture to click images with the camera. Besides the camera can also see the objects (including humans) we interact with and identify them for us or even provide more information about them.

  

Akshar  : While this invention isn’t as flashy or as geeky as the rest of his innovations, its impact was certainly very huge. It enables millions of Indians, who do not understand English, to use digital devices like phones and computers using their own local language.

Akshar takes advantage of the fact that most of the native Indian languages are based on the Brahmi script, allowing it to group 5 similar consonants together. Thus making it very easy and quick for an Indian to type / interact with their personal device in the native language, which otherwise was very cumbersome on the unfriendly QWERTY.

Mouseless : Intrigued with the fact that the mouse is such an indispensable object, Pranav finally decided to take up the challenge and see if he could make the omnipresent vanish from our daily lives; which needless to say he did, by simply using an infrared laser beam and infrared- enabled camera which tracks your hands’ motions and its gestures accurately.                               

Here is the explanation of the technology:

“Both IR laser and IR camera are embedded in the computer. The laser beam module is modified with a line cap and placed such that it creates a plane of IR laser just above the surface the computer sits on. The user cups their hand, as if a physical mouse was present underneath, and the laser beam lights up the hand which is in contact with the surface. The IR camera detects those bright IR blobs using computer vision. The change in the position and arrangements of these blobs are interpreted as mouse cursor movement and mouse clicks.”

Third Eye : Fighting for the remote to see a channel of your choice is a common problem at many homes. Pranav Mistry has even designed a solution for this too. While he was at MIT, Mistry invented a technology that allows upto five people to watch different channels on the same screen at the same time. The glasses, called thirdEye, allow users to see customized information. So they view the same screen but different content. Currently TV manufacturers like Samsung and Sony are already using the technology by providing their customers with special glasses that allow them to multiview with each video stream being filtered out by one pair of glasses.

Another example of its implementation: People can see signages in their own language at public places. For example, a Japanese tourist can see all instructions in Japanese and an American in English.

Even video games do not need to have split screens anymore. Each player can see his or her personal view of the game on the TV screen.

P.S : News is spreading that the NAMO government is trying to bring Mistry back to India. Honestly hope that this will come true!!!