computervision
Latest
NC State's computer vision software promises improved self-driving vehicles
Well, NC State researchers sure seem to be keeping themselves busy these days, with them not only recently developing some improved smart sensors, but some computer vision software that could one day lead to self-driving vehicles. The big advantage with their software is that it's basically able to watch the road and recognize real world driving conditions a few steps in advance -- lane changes, stop signs, etc. -- while also watching out for other cars and pedestrians. Of course, at the moment, that "road" is actually the hallways of NC State, and the vehicle is a toy Jeep, but you get the idea. The researchers are also quick to point out that while the software could eventually lead to truly autonomous vehicles, they first see it being used in the event of an emergency, with the car able to slowly and safely pull itself over and then dial 911. Head on past for a quick overview, local news style.
Harvard and MIT researchers working to simulate the visual cortex to give computers true sight
It sounds like a daunting task, but some researchers at Harvard and MIT have banded together to basically "reverse engineer" the human brain's ability to process visual data into usable information. However, instead of testing one processing model at a time, they're using a screening technique borrowed from molecular biology to test a range of thousands of models up against particular object recognition tasks. To get the computational juice to accomplish this feat, they've been relying heavily on GPUs, saying the off-the-shelf parallel computing setup they've got gives them hundred-fold speed improvements over conventional methods. So far they claim their results are besting "state-of-the-art computer vision systems" (which, if iPhoto's skills are any indication, wouldn't take much), and they hope to not only improve tasks such as face recognition, object recognition and gesture tracking, but also to apply their knowledge back into a better understanding of the brain's mysterious machinations. A delicious cycle! There's a video overview of their approach after the break. [Thanks, David]
