Imagine no screens, no keyboards and being able to access the world’s information at your fingertips so that you can make the optimal decision on whatever it is you are doing. Wear Ur World or the 6th Sense as it is being called is a wearable device that enables interaction between your real world and the internet world of data. It is the brain child of Pranav Mistry, an Indian Phd student enrolled in the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT Media Lab.

The 6th Sense is composed of off the shelf components, costing approximately $350, and consisting of a webcam, portable battery powered projection system (which has a little mirror attached to it), and a cell phone. The cell phone which can be in your pocket acts as the communication and computational device. The system intuitively recognizes hand gestures and the environment around it and can in real-time project requested information on any surface.

The application of this simple device is mind boggling. For instance the system recognizes a squaring hand gesture to mean “take a picture”. Using the same hand gesture the picture taken can be projected on any surface, resized, organized and filed. Drawing a watch on your wrist the system can project a watch showing the time. Zooming in on a map can project information on your surroundings. The device can recognize items on store shelves, retrieve and project information about the products and provide quick signals to let users know which items suit their tastes for purchase. Deciding on a book purchase at a bookstore? Let your 6th Sense project the reviews, ratings and what your friends think about the book, directly on the cover of the book. Reading an article in the newspaper? 6th Sense can retrieve the latest stories or videos on the topic and project and play them on the pages.

An interesting application is the social one. With your fashionably designed pendant (or perhaps there can be other jewellry items) you can walk up to that attractive man at the social gathering and see projected on his chest everything about him, his blog, his url, degrees, likes and dislikes and know what to talk about. When he exclaims: “How did you know I am a sailor?!” you can respond coyly “I guess its my 6th Sense”. But beware he might have a device on him too! (Maybe its his tie clip?)

The 6th Sense or Wear Ur World could hit the market in two years time. Cell phone manufacturers are already working on integrating projection capabilities into their products so it might be faster. Whatever the timeframe this incredible, yet simple invention integrates our world and how we will interact in a way that will have huge societal impact.

According to the Washington Post in just over 5 months 300 million mobile applications have been downloaded from Apple’s popular showcase of mobile applications, and it wasn’t just IPhone users downloading. That’s right, Smart Phone users were also in the lineup. There seems to be an application for everything you can imagine, but none quite like “MeFertile”.

Now whether you are trying to get pregnant or just looking for a natural hormone-free contraceptive method, “MeFertile” allows you to keep track of your fertility information in the most convenient way, on your IPhone. That’s right, no calendars or paper charting. The promotional material says: “We wish you a lot of fun”. (I chose to skip the video tutorial produced by “High Five”). Yellow means you are the least fertile and Pink means, well you had better head home. If you are Bright Pink for more than 18 days the instructions say to visit your pharmacy immediately.

I shouldn’t laugh so loudly. I was 36 once wondering if I would become pregnant and then an English Doctor said “Elizabeth you have to have s__” I guess I was hoping to be struck by lightening instead. But as I discovered the universe provides abundantly when you are in a state of gratefulness.

But, oh my gosh, check out the glow in the dark graphs that automatically appear on your IPhone! Imagine being out with your girlfriends at a nightclub and your phone announces: ”MeFertile”.  Well if that isn’t bad enough there is a guy on Twitter who has started a group called “MeFertile”. (How creative??)

I wonder if my girlfirends have seen the new Asurion Mobile apps? They have this March introduced a new open mobile address book where you can add your Flickr photos, Facebook pages, Twitter Feeds, email and everything. Their tag line is rather humorous: “always protected, alway connected, providing security and seamless social content over a handheld device”.

I think I will keep to my Blackberry. There’s solataire, weather, maps and medieval kings (a bit racey to play on a plane). Apparently the “Track Your Stocks” app hasn’t done so well on downloads this year. A passing bad bug, they say.

As a young girl I remember being curled up next to my mother by the fire during a storm on the lake listening to CJRL radio as they broadcast weather and storm status updates. CJRL had their phone lines open for callers for communicating emergency messages. People would call in (usually on radio phone) to relay messages to their family and loved ones. Missing dogs, trees that cut the power, missing boaters, tornado sightings, small craft warnings, our battery operating radio kept us in touch with our community.

Today we have Twitter. It is the brainchild of Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams and it began initially as a way to send simple status updates to friends. How it works is that you say what you are doing in 140 characters or less and this message in turn gets out to people who are interested. If they are really interested they get your update as a text message on their cell phone. It is amazing to think that a simple message sent via Twitter could be reached by 60,000 people in a matter of seconds – that’s if you do a full broadcast. People are sharing their special occasions and their mundane ones, and they are feeling more in touch with others despite long distances.

Williams and Dorsey didn’t expect what would eventually evolve from their simple creation. Twitter has a real application in the moment of an event. When the horrible wildfires hit in San Diego people turned to Twitter to report what was happening. The LA times, the Red Cross and other officials used it to dispense new updates. Even the politicians got in the game. (There are over 47 U.S. Congress members including Obama and McCain on Twitter).

As a real-time messaging service Twitter has become a social network phenomena.

Programmers have turned their attention to it and have developed over 200 different APIs and interfaces allowing users to send messages from their MAC, IPhone, or Blackberry. There’s even a device you can download to notify you when a plant needs watering. One group of programmers who call there company “Summize” built a Twitter Search Engine so you can search on topics and know the “buzz” around the world.

In our new emerging world where the social norm is about helping strangers for nothing in return, Twitter is a hit. The applications are limitless. Even a gas shortage in a U.S. city can be solved in seconds. There is a story about two guys who drove around in Atlanta and Twittered when they found gas and for how much. This amazing faculty which started out as a way to keep friends informed has become so much more.

When asked in an interview what is next for Twitter in terms of development Evan Williams the founder answered: “I have no idea where it will go next but I have learned to follow a hunch”. This is how products are developed today. It is not about trying to respond to a market but in turn embrace the market and the incredible power of the collective to allow development to take place of a product as it is being used.

I can imagine my son receiving his Twitter text messages from his friend John and reporting: “Mums, the storm is over. There is no more lighting, or tornados and only six trees down in town. No one got hurt and the power will be back soon. I have found the dog under the bed. What’s a small craft warning? Can we turn Kerpoof back on?”