This is it by Victor Bwire

It has been sung over and over again that the youth are the leaders of tomorrow but many would disagree with the statement. In as much as the young people today have been made to believe that they have no role to play in leadership yet they are the majority of the population it begs more questions than answers. Young people are the leaders of today and we should let no one deceive them that they are not up to the task of being in leadership positions. It’s time the youth were urged to have open minds, think wide and big, since it is said that minds are like parachutes, they only function when they are open. They must therefore, as budding entrepreneurs and change agents; aim high and dream big, our thoughts and dreams act like a glass ceiling above which it is impossible to rise. If the youth dream small and they will surely remain small, wallowing in the valley of mediocrity but dreaming big will raise them, soaring into the blue skies of excellence, achievement and personal fulfillment.

Advancement in age doesn’t necessarily mean that one is able to make sound decisions, and hence there, there are some young people who can bring a lot of good new ideas on the table in matters concerning leadership and governance. The youth have the ability to bring change to the way in which things have always been done ever since time immemorial, the youth are fresh, gifted and bright.

The youth of today have to bring about the social change that they would like to see whether in leadership or moral issues of the society. Even though many challenges face them today, the most serious being the lack of employment opportunities through which they can earn an honest and decent life. This needs to be addressed with the seriousness it deserves if at all we would like to see a decrease in crime, drugs and substance abuse and the general state of hopelessness and despair in the youth. The issue of job creation should be every government’s top priority in order to achieve the common goals of humanity that include provision of better living standards and economic growth and hence should be accorded the weight it deserves even in the allocation of a country’s resources, commitment and focus as those directed towards HIV/AIDS and others.

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, ‘‘What lies behind me, what lies in front of me is nothing compared to what lies within me.'' There’s infinite power within us, endless possibility is in store of us and boundless opportunity surrounds us.

DEVELOPMENT OF A SIXTH SENSE

'SixthSense' is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.

We've evolved over millions of years to sense the world around us. When we encounter something, someone or some place, we use our five natural senses to perceive information about it; that information helps us make decisions and chose the right actions to take. But arguably the most useful information that can help us make the right decision is not naturally perceivable with our five senses, namely the data, information and knowledge that mankind has accumulated about everything and which is increasingly all available online. Although the miniaturization of computing devices allows us to carry computers in our pockets, keeping us continually connected to the digital world, there is no link between our digital devices and our interactions with the physical world. Information is confined traditionally on paper or digitally on a screen. SixthSense bridges this gap, bringing intangible, digital information out into the tangible world, and allowing us to interact with this information via natural hand gestures. ‘SixthSense’ frees information from its confines by seamlessly integrating it with reality, and thus making the entire world your computer.

The SixthSense prototype is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The hardware components are coupled in a pendant like mobile wearable device. Both the projector and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user’s pocket. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and physical objects around us to be used as interfaces; while the camera recognizes and tracks user's hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques. The software program processes the video stream data captured by the camera and tracks the locations of the colored markers (visual tracking fiducials) at the tip of the user’s fingers using simple computer-vision techniques. The movements and arrangements of these fiducials are interpreted into gestures that act as interaction instructions for the projected application interfaces. The maximum number of tracked fingers is only constrained by the number of unique fiducials, thus SixthSense also supports multi-touch and multi-user interaction.

The SixthSense prototype implements several applications that demonstrate the usefulness, viability and flexibility of the system. The map application lets the user navigate a map displayed on a nearby surface using hand gestures, similar to gestures supported by Multi-Touch based systems, letting the user zoom in, zoom out or pan using intuitive hand movements. The drawing application lets the user draw on any surface by tracking the fingertip movements of the user’s index finger. SixthSense also recognizes user’s freehand gestures (postures). For example, the SixthSense system implements a gestural camera that takes photos of the scene the user is looking at by detecting the ‘framing’ gesture. The user can stop by any surface or wall and flick through the photos he/she has taken. SixthSense also lets the user draw icons or symbols in the air using the movement of the index finger and recognizes those symbols as interaction instructions. For example, drawing a magnifying glass symbol takes the user to the map application or drawing an ‘@’ symbol lets the user check his mail. The SixthSense system also augments physical objects the user is interacting with by projecting more information about these objects projected on them. For example, a newspaper can show live video news or dynamic information can be provided on a regular piece of paper. The gesture of drawing a circle on the user’s wrist projects an analog watch.

The current prototype system costs approximate $350 to build. Instructions on how to make your own prototype device can be found here (coming soon).

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VIDEO LINK: http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html#