A Practical Use for CV

How about a footrest to put under your desk at work that's smart. When you leave the desk, it retreats to the wall. When you approach, it only moves (to the right position) if you lift up both feet off the floor invitingly. You get the idea - it needs to be smart.

Extending Computer Vision

Thanks for visiting the Embedded Vision Academy and accessing resources provided by BDTI. We are interested in your experience in using these resources. If you answer a few questions for us, your name will be entered into a drawing to receive your choice of:

        A copy of Gary Bradsky’s Learning OpenCV: Computer Vision with the OpenCV Library, signed by the author. (We will either send you a copy of the current edition now or you can opt to wait for the new edition.)
        A Raspberry Pi development kit

    We will draw four winners from among the names of those who respond to our questions by Tuesday, October 16.

    To enter the drawing, please reply to this message and insert your answers to the following questions:

        What resources did you download?

ubuntu Virtual Machine

        What did you did you do? For example, if you downloaded the OpenCV QuickStart Kit, did you build the example applications? Or, did you use OpenCV to create your own?

No, I don't see a tutorial on how to do that - I did play some of the examples. I'm not a software guy, but I want to build CV apps

        How did it go?

Playing the examples is easy. We need a presentation on a hello-world approach to building a new app - how to you build a motion detection app on your own - not use someone else's fully packaged app.

        Do you have any suggestions for similar tools?

Hello world docs would be nice

        What additional embedded vision resources would you like us to offer?

Take 5 of the most popular cameras, ranked for quality and cost and build a library for them - someone should be able to buy one of those 5 and then go to the website and get everything he needs to build an app. If it could be ported to Raspberry Pi, super.

iView - Another First from Apple

Something tells me the bad guys might have this already.

This should shake up the Microsoft/Dell/Samsung idiot complex pretty soon once it's out :

Basic idea - you put on sync-goggles like in the early days of hi-tech 3D movies - and in the current age of 3D gaming.

Then, you can set a property on a window on your desktop - make it hidden to plain view. Basic idea is simple - the window that only you should be able to view will only flash exist on the screen

Low-Cost Home Security

Intrusion-detection is something you can get - from ADT, say. This simple idea is one step ahead.

Have a camera positioned outside your house, looking at your property - say the walkway leading to your yard, or your yard. You need a loud-speaker, or simple audio-device and some processing power as well. You might be able to manage with Netduino or Raspberry Pi or something like that.

Here's what you do - if you detect motion - of a large enough sized body (maybe 3D is the way to go - 2 cameras?) - then you put out an audible alert. You should probably have a conspicuous camera (the fake) that makes the noise - so if the crook gets frustrated and decides to vent, you don't lose much.

You need a thingy on your keychain that's like a car-remote-key that you can use to disarm the thing for 5 minutes - maybe even do simple commands like 3 quick presses disarms for 1 hour, etc. When it's re-arming, you hear a special chime before you get the annoying buzz.

You're going for deterrence here. And low cost - there's not communication with a base-station, remote recording/monitoring, etc. I so badly want to get something like this working as a hello-world home-security project.

Resources :

Embedded Vision Alliance
MG International : Poseidon
Cernium Archerfish

iPhone Weeder

Literally a killer app.

I think it'll get there faster on Android. Still, needs one additional gadget and some help from our agricultural scientist buddies.

You've seen those stakes you can drive into the ground around the walkway to your door - they're a dollar the Home Depot. For this, you need one of those that puts out the required sound. It's solar-powered and has a speaker of course. 

Every weed has a killer set of sounds you can play - maybe they're low frequency, whatever, but, you play the sound continuously, and, after a couple of days, the weed is done.

So, you drive the stake in, near the weed, point your iPhone camera at the weed and, voila, it programs the stake to put out the right notes.

So simple and elegant. Too bad Steve is too dead to bring this one to life.

Do it Yourself Hi-Speed Chase

The future of home-security.

You know the status quo - your home's broken into, alarm goes off, cops arrive, crooks have made off with the loot, they write you a report, you get your money back from insurance, but you don't sleep well anymore.

How about...

crooks bust in, sensors detect, and inform, you immediately (?) launch an RC helicopter out of one of those innocuous looking plastic storage bins in your back yard to follow the crooks. This needs a bit of video analytics - you need to detect that the crooks have started their getaway before you move.. maybe swoop down behind them and get their license plate too..

To think about...

How far can you follow them? i.e., if it were pure electric, what range could you have. You can actually get tiny gasoline engines (0.5 pounds weight!) that might give you virtually unlimited range.. (when you sense you're down to your last bit - aim at the stars to get max altitude and then glide back home!)

http://www.mecoa.com/kb/56/5680.htm

Zynga Stock Prop

How about something that takes a set of chess game moves and replays the game in animated fashion - letting you put in additional delays and commentary? Listening zynga? A thousand apologies, and praises to Chess Tempo and John Syer who contributed improvements : It exists!! http://chesstempo.com/pgn-viewer.html

Google's Big Miss

This is so simple (even to implement) that I'm surprised they don't have this one yet. Shame on Google. No wonder Apple's winning:)

Hokay, you go on Google Maps and get directions from A to B. But, you want to stop by an ATM along the way, or pick up pizza or a subway sandwich along the way. Wouldn't it be nice to have a field on maps.google.com that says "Highlight what along the way?"?

Then you enter subway or Wells Fargo ATMs or whatever.

Childishly simple. Duh!!
(as of Jan 2012)

And, with my Samsung Core Prime, with Maps, I see that this feature now exists - not on the desktop version though. Makes sense. If you're going somewhere and using navigation, it's not the desktop you're taking with you. So, thanks - you got there after 4 years Mr. Pichai. But the, why the f did you kill the turn-by-turn listing that was so useful? What the f is wrong with you guys? Is there some strange chemical spewing out in Mt. View?

But!! Why not make the "along the way" feature available on the desktop version also? *ds! Someone sitting at home might want to know about what's close to the route.

--And, 4 years later, Apple rolls it out on iOS :) They're not tech titans because they set trends. They're titans because they move as slow as a dinosaur.

How to Save America

What's better than dinnertime kiddy videos that keep them in one place to let you feed them? Kid videos that let you program embedded suggestions into them to inculcate the behaviours you want (and attitudes too). Maya loves algebra. Betty loves to eat vegetables.. You get the idea..