I See Live People

Over the last several years, I have presented Kayanta’s Social Advisor to more than 50 small groups and individuals.  Every meeting would start the same way.  Start up my MacBook, connect to the projector, start up Firefox for the demo, start up Keynote,  test my IR remote and away I’d go.  Invariably, when it was time to advance a slide, I’d hit the wrong button on the remote or I’d point it in the wrong direction and I’d end up defaulting to use the keyboard.  The advent of Pico Projectors and Pranav Mistry’s research on SixthSense Technology (video after jump) gave me an idea.

So, here’s the big idea.  Ok, it’s kind of a small idea but it’s still pretty cool.

Ditch the IR Remote (and the port too) and use the camera as the input device.

Take a small bit of Pranav’s work (he plans to open source it) and run it on the Mac to identify a handful of simple gestures.  Tie them into Keynote and stand in front of the camera when you are giving your next presentation.

Voila, you are now the remote.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology: Pranav Mistry on TED.com (ted.com)
• Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology (prathambooks.org)

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