The Robotic Musicians known as: Intel’s Industrial Control in Concert http://t.co/7uyjx1CI Some amazing engineers – softwaare *& hardware.
I admired the animations when they came out and am just blown away that an engineering team could implement it in real life, in 90 days using off the shelf software and hardware.
And while we’re on that theme: Â Robot Quadrotors Perform James Bond Theme
In this attempt to summarize the state of a technology and its application to production and postproduction my focus is on image recognition, including facial detection and recognition. We’re exposed to facial recognition/detection technology in some current apps: Premiere Pro CS5 onward; iPhoto, Final Cut Pro X, Picassa, Facebook, with mixed success.
At the San Francisco Supermeet Friday 27th January, Adobe’s Al Mooney revealed a sneak peek at a new application for the Creative Suite called Prelude.
Artificial Intelligence Predicts What Will Happen Next In A Video http://t.co/TPopRqQq
Many thanks to my friend Don Berube for pointing this out. Â While the headline slightly overstates the case, it’s clear we’re heading for an era when computers in general will understand meaning and the content of images.Â
Automatic Fact-Checking Coming To The Web – Complications Follow http://t.co/1aTaVRQo
My interest in this story is simply because I want to harness that power to speed the pre-post process or understanding what content we have, in order to better (and more quickly) use it. It also confirms my long-held belief that we are – at least for some kinds of work – be able to semi-automate first assemblies.
In this context:
My best guess is that this will be a growing part of the behind the scenes internet services industry. Google would be a natural contender, indexing as it does much of the data one would need to reach a reasonable judgment. But Google isn’t really in the judgment business. Sure, you’ve got their “best guess for Patrick Swayze age†if you search for it (59!), but evaluating natural-language claims, political or what have you, doesn’t seem like their business. They store and index data and surface what you’re looking for. I think it will be a startup, or someone in academia like Schultz, who provides the first germ of this and starts a movement, though his own contributions may in the end be minimal. The competition will, hopefully, be based on the accuracy of their evaluations, just as the search engines competed on speed and simplicity, or device makers on build and design.
Although let’s not forget what my friend Doug Luberts pointed to:Â Colossus: The Forbin Project
Forbin is the designer of an incredibly sophisticated computer that will run all of America’s nuclear defenses. Shortly after being turned on, it detects the existence of Guardian, the Soviet counterpart, previously unknown to US Planners. Both computers insist that they be linked, and after taking safeguards to preserve confidential material, each side agrees to allow it. As soon as the link is established the two become a new Super computer and threaten the world with the immediate launch of nuclear weapons if they are detached. Colossus begins to give it’s plans for the management of the world under it’s guidance. Forbin and the other scientists form a technological resistance to Colossus which must operate underground.
I’m mildly more positive.
Apple wins patent on 3D object-recognition technology http://t.co/1rg8SO3I
Apparently one of the patents Apple acquired when they purchased Polar Rose last year.
The USPTO has awarded Apple a patent on 3D object-recognition technology that goes well beyond the current face recognition already included in apps such as iPhoto and the iOS 5 camera application, allowing a device to “build” a 3D face or object by analyzing the curves, contours and shadows of a 2D image. Such technology would give Kinect-like detection and recognition capabilities to cameras such as those found in iOS and Mac devices.
The technique could be used, for example, to create biometric logins that only unlocked the device when the owner was identified (though as with other such techniques, keeping the device able to distinguish the actual owner versus a picture of the owner would be the key to real security). It could also be used to automatically take and upload timed pictures of users who were not the owner, or lock out machines when the owner’s face was not detected. Apple mentions also being able to identify persons who are not aware that they are being recognized.
Those who know me will realize that I’m thinking of how we can apply this technology to production metadata. Facial identification is a powerful tool if it’s accurate, and the ability to recognize more objects will give us even more metadata to feed into identifying and editing algorithms.
Two stories today that caught my attention are:
Facial Recognition App Detects, Captures Smiles Technology intrudes more & more into “human” territory
Meet Swivl, The Motion Tracking iPhone Dock That Always Keeps You On Camera More and more automatics!
Now, it would be really cool if Swivl tracked you and kept you on camera using facial detection but it does not: instead it uses a hand held transmitter/controller to “know” where to point the camera. Â Even with that it will make a great addition to a video blogger, web episode producer as the producer/talent can move and have the camera follow them as they do.
How I automated my writing career http://t.co/Q7ld3YHH
Naturally, any automation of “creative” processes interests me because I believe that some parts of the creative process of video postproduction can be automated. However, author Robbie Allen is right when he says:
The New iPhone’s Face Recognition Capabilities Could Redefine Privacy http://t.co/WayE1Abv
Following on the heels of yesterday’s post about facial recognition in the cloud here’s information on how Apple are applying the technology they gained when they acquired Polar Rose last September, at least within iOS frameworks.
When coders dug through Apple’s beta versions of iOS5 they found what were deemed to be “highly sophisticated” API systems that let an iPhone automatically track eye positions and mouth positions (so the angle to the user, and possibly where their attention is being directed could be calculated) as well as passing key data on to a face recognition algorithm that would be accessible to all apps…not just Apple’s own.
Combine this with the Nuance-licensed voice recognition technology in Siri – also new with iOS 5 and iPhone 4S – and we have the foundation of a very powerful metadata generation system that would automate naming people in clips and form the basis of speech transcription and then keyword extraction.
In my dreams these are technologies that will come to Final Cut Pro X 10.2 or 10.3 in future years.
Warner Bros puts your face in Facebook Web series http://t.co/oEFDAhcK
Back in the mid 1990’s my email sig line read (for a while) “Dynamic Media Evangelist’ because I was a serious advocate of interactive media of the lean forward, get involved kind. Well, disappointment after disappointment followed and I realized that, for most people, the act of “watching video” was a lean back, turn off act, not an active one.