As of 2005, only 15 percent of the world was mapped. This slows the delivery of aid after a disaster — and hides the economic potential of unused lands and unknown roads. In this short talk, Google’s Lalitesh Katragadda demos Map Maker, a group map-making tool that people around the globe are using to map their world [...]

We’ve already seen MIT researcher Pranav Mistry’s SixthSense projector-based augmented-reality system in some cool demos, but he just gave a TED talk and his latest ideas are the wildest yet. At TEDIndia, Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data — including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper “laptop.” In an onstage Q&A, Mistry says he’ll open-source the software behind SixthSense, to open its possibilities to all.

This demo — from Pattie Maes’ lab at MIT, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry — was the buzz of TED. It’s a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Imagine Minority Report and then some [...]