MIT Students turn Internet into a sixth human sense

LONG BEACH, California -- Students at the MIT Media Lab have developed a wearable computing system that turns any surface into an interactive display screen. The wearer can summon virtual gadgets and internet data at will, then dispel them like smoke when they're done.

Pattie Maes of the lab's Fluid Interfaces group said the research is aimed at creating a new digital "sixth sense" for humans. Maes' MIT group, which includes seven graduate students, were thinking about how a person could be more integrated into the world around them and access information without having to do something like take out a phone.

The prototype was built from an ordinary webcam and a battery-powered 3M projector, with an attached mirror -- all connected to an internet-enabled mobile phone. The setup, which costs less than $350, allows the user to project information from the phone onto any surface -- walls, the body of another person or even your hand.