MIT Grad To Make Digital "SixthSense" Open Source

yuveraj writes to mention that Pranav Mistry, the brain behind the innovative "SixthSense" application demoed earlier this year, plans to open source the technology in order to get this to the streets faster. "Mistry’s decision has meaning beyond Sixth Sense. The desire of inventors is always to get their work into the market as quickly as possible. Usually this means waiting for it to be turned into a useful, profitable invention. Mistry is bypassing this by going straight to open source. There is no report on which license he will use, but whichever one he does choose he has put paid to the canard that open source and innovation are incompatible, for all time."

*sigh*

[inviolet]

The sixth sense is accelleration. Sensory data is provided by the semicircular canals and is interpreted as sensations, therefore it deserves the title of 'sense'. Proprioception may also qualify, even though it is a derived/calculated sense.

I give this example to my children to teach the important fact that most every person and most every textbook on Earth can be clearly and demonstrably wrong about something obvious.

lol

[charliemopps11]

I've never gotten paid for anything I've written. I give it all away. The reward is called "Pride" As a society we simply need to find a way to make sure people like Pranav Mistry have gainful employment while they devlop things like this. As long as I have a decent job that pays my bills and afords me the time to work on software, I will continue to do so. But when employment barely pays my rent and my managers expect me to come in early and work late to the point that I have no time to do anything rewarding at all, everyone suffers because I can not continue to work on things that may or may not be profitable in the end. In my opinion the biggest obstacle in the way of innovation is profit.

Re:Pilots are being taken out

[greensoap]

Cannot handle the G forces, I agree. But too slow? Then why do UAV's still have human pilots via remote control. Humans are being taken out because the aircraft are much more maneuverable without a human body blacking out during sustained g-forces. Also, that pesky bit about losing trained airmen when an aircraft is lost.

Re:paid to the canard?

[Anonymous Coward]

True innovation takes effort.

True.

Effort costs money.

True.

Giving away your stuff isn't usually a good way to make money.

Non-sequitur.

This incorrectly implies that the only reason for innovation is to directly make money off them.

As countless Open Source projects (such as Apache, Linux, etc.) have proven - collaborative projects require *less* effort for innovation, and result in better projects for less money.

Truly new ideas, however, are usually "held back" and kept proprietary for a while during which time the inventor/developer of the idea profits.

Only if the inventor/developer's main goal is to sell the "innovation" for a profit. If the goal is reduced costs, it makes sense to share the development burden with others, so that everybody benefits.

SixthSense?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the SixthSense project or do we need a sixth sense to figure it out?

It would have been nice to include a short description in the summary!

Re:Pilots are being taken out

[castironpigeon]

UAVs still have human pilots because politicians would freak out and media hysteria machines would have a field day if you had fully automated drones flying around, with or without bombs attached.

Re:paid to the canard?

[poetmatt]

You missed a step.

True innovation takes effort. Effort costs money

It's more like this:

True innovation takes inspiration. Inspiration/innovation takes effort. Effort costs time. Time can cost money, or it can cost effort.

Re:paid to the canard?

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

True, but the counter argument played out by the owners of patents and copyrights is that innovation would be dead if there was not stringent FBI level enforcement of I.P. including stringent fines and jail time. Well I guess that followed after those were commodized such that the owners of those properties were not the innovators for the most part, and the innovators are not the major benefactors of their innovation. Altruism is not dead, idea's don't have to always be owned and sold. I think we should go back to copyright only 35 years, then public domain. Afterall Steamboat Willy is now in public domain isn't he.

Re:*sigh*

[Monkeedude1212]

Aren't those just different applications of "touch" ? Essentially I know I'm moving or upside down because I feel the effects of Gravity, and the feeling of those things is purely because of the physical pressure applied to nerves. Or at least my limitted understanding of Biology would lead me to believe that, I never took full Bio in high school.

Wheras Sight is based on light entering your eyes, sound is your interpretation of mini air compressions around you, taste and smell have to do with different recepticals catching different molecules or something like that.

The other senses you guys are pointing out don't really seem to be anything other then pressure sensation on the inside of your body in the exact same manner we do on the outside of our body.