RFID magazine links online and offline

The first internet-connected magazine is using technology within its printed pages to create an innovative way of linking readers to its online content.

Using an RFID tag buried within its pages, the French entertainment magazine Amusement has collaborated with RFID specialists Violet to lead readers to exclusive online content that is otherwise inaccessible to web users.

Readers can touch the magazine on an RFID scanner, such as the Violet Mir:ror, obtained separately from the magazine, and this sends a signal to the server triggering access to certain online applications.

Although magazines have long offered a mixture of online and offline content, the traditional exclusive web-based content has typically been reserved for subscribers with password accounts. By offering something for the reader who prefers to pick up a magazine at the newsstand, Amusement’s new model is connecting with the often marginalised casual reader.

SixthSense blurs the digital world and the real world

Researchers from the Fluid Interfaces Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab have unveiled the latest prototype of SixthSense – a wearable, gesture-driven computing platform that continually augments the physical world with digital information.

Imagine being able to turn any surface around you into an interactive surface – checking your email on a blank wall simply by drawing an @ sign in the air with your finger, or being able to check the time by using the same finger to draw a circle on your wrist to produce the image of an analog watch. You can put your thumbs and forefingers together to make a picture frame allowing you to take a digital photograph, or just use your hand as a keypad or dial pad.

If you were in a bookstore and holding a book, SixthSense will recognize that and go to Amazon and display the online reviews and prices of that book right on its cover. The system is also customisable so that if you don't want Amazon reviews you could instead choose to find out what the Guardian thinks of it, or if the actual bookstore had decided to provide their own content you wouldn’t even need to go online to find more information.

MIT are trying to make it possible to have access to relevant information in a more seamless way, and while today's mobile computing devices can be useful, they are still ‘deaf and blind’, meaning that we have to stop what we're doing and tell those devices what information we need or want. MIT have a vision of a computing system that understands, at least to some extent, where the user is, what they are doing, and who they are interacting with. It can then proactively make information available to that user based on the situation.

The idea is that SixthSense tries to determine not only what someone is interacting with, but also how they are interacting with it. The software searches the internet for information that is potentially relevant to that situation, and then the projector takes over.

The prototype has been improved since it was first introduced to the public last year when it consisted of a web camera strapped to a bicycle helmet. The current prototype promises to be more ‘consumer friendly’ by consisting of a small camera and projector combination (about the size of a cigarette pack) worn around the neck. An accompanying smartphone runs the SixthSense software and handles the connection to the internet.

The camera acts as a digital eye, seeing what the user sees, and also tracks the movements of the thumbs and index fingers of both of the user's hands. The hardware included in the SixthSense system is not that expensive, with the current prototype costing about £300 to build, however this attempt to merge the digital world with the physical world requires some serious programming and engineering! The real work is in the software that is constantly trying to figure out what's around you and what you're trying to do. It has to recognise the images you see, track your gestures, and then relate it all to relevant information at the same time.

This initial research phase has only meant a few applications have been developed, but in the longer term it is envisioned that the SixthSense platform will be opened up to let anyone develop applications for it.

There are already some commercial applications planned, with the team looking at developing a sign language application that would "speak out" a translation while someone was signing. There is also potential for SixthSense in the field of gaming. Unlike the Nintendo Wii, which keeps you in front of the television, the SixthSense system might allow a player to go outside and be able to get a real tennis lesson on a real tennis court.

No one involved in the SixthSense project feels that their platform will replace laptops and smartphones, but in certain instances, it can do things that a desktop or laptop can't do, which is quickly put contextual information right where a user wants it wherever they are.

Watch Pattie Maes talk about SixthSense at TED.

Tag Galaxy

Tag Galaxy is a diploma thesis project by Steven Wood, built using Papervision3D and the Flickr API, it allows you to explore Flickr photos via planetary systems.