Have you ever paused for a moment and counted the number of cameras you actually own and use? It is fine, you may do so now. This probably ranges from digital cameras to webcams and cameras which are built-in your mobile phone and tablet. Even more, a single device may have more than one camera. As a matter of fact, many of the latest smartphones have around three cameras with concept phones indicating that we will be seeing phones with more cameras than that.
What does this mean? First of all, it confirms that from a technological perspective, we mastered the ability of capturing digital representations of our real world. Cameras have been with us for centuries and it was only since a few decades ago that photographs and videos were actually made commercially viable and available. In practice, this meant that it took humanity 200 years to digitise photography. As Sara Robinson from Google explains, once everyone started making effective use of digital cameras, we discovered that taking digital photographs was actually the easy part. The real technological challenge of this century is enabling computers to understand the content of the images and videos we capture in our daily lives.
While you are probably wondering why we should bother with having machines understand what an image contains, let me assure you that, unknowingly, you are expecting computers to do so (even if that means a fine for over-speeding just out of the Santa Venera tunnels!). Computer vision is the multi-disciplinarily field of study that is converting this utility device we call ‘camera’ into the ultimate input device. It takes different professionals working together to deliver this ultimate experience; engineers to build and design hardware for capturing and transmitting visual data, computer scientists to design the most efficient algorithms, and artificial intelligence specialists to design frameworks that make computers work a bit more like us humans.
Imagine a CCTV camera monitoring an elderly person living alone and it detects anomalies in behaviour such as laying on a sofa at a time when that person usually does not and prompts the person with a message to check whether everything is fine before calling the emergency service. You may even imagine a drone hovering over our coasts and detecting plastic bottles, locating them before ending up in the sea, harming the environment.
You may now stop imagining. These are actual projects currently being researched and developed at the Department of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Malta. This is just the start of what can be achieved and our undergraduate and postgraduate students are being equipped with knowledge and skills to build such technology that can make a difference to humanity.
Dylan Seychell is a resident academic in the Department of AI at the University of Malta specialising in computer vision. He is the founder of Malta’s Google Developers Group and tweets on @DylanSeychell.
Did you know?
• The Vatican has nominated St Isidore of Seville to be the patron saint of the internet, a seventh-century theologian and encyclopedist who tried to record everything ever known.
• Residents of Churchill, Manitoba in Canada leave their cars unlocked to offer an escape for pedestrians who might encounter polar bears.
• Norway, the Netherlands, and Sweden all have a higher percentage of English speakers than Canada.
• The Hiroshima Flame of Peace was lit on August 1, 1964 in hope of a world without nuclear weapons, and it will continue to burn until nuclear weapons are abolished worldwide.
• Prolonged exposure to felt containing high levels of mercury would cause mental disfunction in 18th century hat makers, ushering in the phrase “As mad as a hatter”.
For more trivia see: www.um.edu.mt/think
Sound bites
• Scientists have developed a technique to directly convert the cells in an open wound into new skin cells. The approach relies on reprogramming the cells to a stem cell-like state and could be useful for healing wounds and skin damage, countering the effects of aging and helping us to better understand skin cancer.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180905131831.htm
• Parents always worry about whether their children will do well in school, but their kids probably were born with much of what they will need to succeed. A new study published in npj Science of Learning by researchers from the University of Texas at Austin and King’s College London explains the substantial influence genes have on academic success, from the start of elementary school to the last day of high school.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180905131820.htm
To find out some more interesting science news, tune in to Radju Malta on Saturday mornings at 11.05am and listen to Radio Mocha.