Integrating Our Digital and Physical Worlds
Not too long ago we all began a journey of exploration into the digital world of cyberspace. This journey began in the middle part of the last century with a few folks interacting with large computers in climate-controlled rooms. Soon, the reach of those computers extended out to a few desks with “dumb” terminals, then in the 1980’s we welcomed the arrival of personal computers on our desk putting real computing right at our fingertips. Then portables and laptops unleashed the computer from desks. Most of us now carry around in our pockets more computing power, more data storage, and more connectivity than existed in most climate controlled data processing rooms of 30 years ago.
So what’s next on this journey? Pranav Mistry, a PhD candidate at MIT, is doing some very interesting work that point to a likely next step – a more physical interface providing a deeper integration of our digital and physical worlds.
The laptops unleashed the computer from the desk, the mouse freed us from keyboards, the internet connected us to the world, smart phones freed us from the office, all of this has integrated computers more effectively into our lives, it appears Pranav Mistry is leading us into a new level of integration between the physical and the digital worlds.
Watch is video to find out more: TED Talk on SixthSense technology
