Xsense, the man with extended senses

Video Abstract

A characteristic feature of Homo Extensus is the extension of sensory faculties, and functionality related to perception.

Glasses integrated with Computer Vision enable recognition of objects, from plants to works of art, and contextual descriptions. This enables an enhanced learning experience in the environment with digital tools that can generate new applications, from audio guides in museums and cities to augmented technical manuals in industry.

Speech synthesis and machine translation, applied to wearable microphones and speakers, enhance hearing by making previously unthinkable forms of comprehension possible, even in real time, particularly for foreign languages and transliteration of different writing systems.

The self-driving car itself becomes a sensory prosthesis, capable of sensing distances, moving figures.

The entire synthetic world generated with the support of AI and virtual reality can enable extended sensory experiences, such as flying over cities and territories, traveling through time within virtual reconstructions, seeing the future of places and architectural designs, probing the infinity of space and the microworlds of cells, molecules and atoms.

An important application of “extended senses” is being developed in the area of sensory impairment. For example, visual recognition features are being made available for the visually impaired, which vocally describe images or objects that are invisible to them; for the hearing impaired, earphones that can sharpen sounds and words are becoming widespread; for the dyslexic, an important application is speech synthesis, which expresses written texts in acoustic form. We are only at the beginning, but this too is an important dimension of “Homo Extensus,” insofar as enhancing the senses means extending cognitive and learning faculties as well.

AI, AR and sensors will build a new image and experience of the world in the coming years, which, as happened with perspective technique in the Renaissance, will create new representations of reality and art forms designed to “make the invisible visible.”