A disruptive technology is one that comes along and does something that an existing technology does at a cheaper cost and more efficiently (Laureate, 2011). Looking at the Sixth Sense device as presented by Pranav Mistry (TED India, 2009) it would seem that this is definitely a disruptive technology. It is a wearable device that allows you to seamlessly integrate the digital world with the real world. By wearing a small camera/microphone as a pendant and colored tape or caps on your fingers, you can project digital information onto any available surface and interact with it. This type of technology would replace the ubiquitous tablets/iPads that everyone has now. It would definitely take personal devices to the next level.
This type of technology has some amazing possibilities in education. It could help students with learning disabilities as the information could be personalized just for them. It could also be a huge benefit to English language learners as the information could be presented in different languages. Also, deaf people could project conversations so they could read it and blind people could have information spoken for them. Lessons could be delivered anywhere for students that cannot make it to a traditional school. The potential is huge and it boggles the mind to try and think of all the things this technology could be used for. Amazing.
The problem with this technology, and there is a big one, is that it has not gone anywhere in the 6 years since the TED talk. The information is available about Sixth Sense on Pranav Mistry’s website (Mistry, 2010) and apparently the source code is available freely online so that anyone can build their own and some people have done it (Pate, 2010). But aside from a few personal constructions, there seems to be no one stepping up and seriously considering this technology. The developer himself, Pranav Mistry, moved on and was the head of the Samsung Gear development (Tsering, 2013). I read that this was the basis for the Xbox Kinect but I cannot find the article again.
It is sad to see this potentially amazing technology not being exploited and developed, but I can see the lack of desire to develop with an open source system that anyone could use to recreate their technology. But I think this will lead to bigger and better things. I imagine, like other technology such as augmented reality, this will languish in a small corner of the technology world until someone develops a way to use it easily and cheaply or until it is used as a launching pad for another leap in technology. Augmented reality languished for almost 40 years before it became something that could be used by the average person. Sixth Sense is only 6 years old or so. It may be years before some progress is made either with it or from it.
References
Laureate Education (Producer). (2014a). David Thornburg: Disruptive technologies [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Mistry, P. (2010). Sixth Sense. Retrieved from http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/
Pate, A. (2010). Sixth Sense Technology [Video file]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHOW70Oa8o8
TED India. (Producer). (2009). The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology.html
Tsering, (2013). What happened to Sixth Sense & Pranav Mistry? Vulcan Post. Retrieved from: https://vulcanpost.com/1537/what-happened-to-sixth-sense-pranav-mistry/
My adventures in pursuit of a PhD. 
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