News & Analysis
Is 'vision' the next-gen must-have user interface?
Junko Yoshida
3/23/2012 2:42 PM EDT
Earlier this month, IMS Research (Austin, Texas) issued a press release questioning if Apple and the iPad are falling behind competitors in user interface technologies.
The point of the research company’s commentary, to paraphrase, was: Sure, Apple has changed the game by bringing touch-screen interaction to the masses; but is that all? Shouldn’t Apple be also embracing embedded vision technologies in the next product release?
The industry still wants to know: Where will the battle lines be drawn for the next-generation user interface – beyond touch. Will it be gesture, motion, or voice? What about mental telepathy?
A growing number of FPGA, DSP and processor companies are now betting the future on embedded vision.
Contributing to this movement are: a) the growing processing power (using parallelism) in embedded systems, and b) increasingly sophisticated machine-vision algorithms that let embedded systems not just see but extract information to produce necessary intelligence.
Jeff Bier, president of Berkeley Design Technology, Inc., said, “Thanks to Microsoft’s Kinect (used in Xbox 360), we now have ‘existence proof’ for embedded vision. We now know it works.”
Consumers, moreover, are becoming more familiar with gesture controls, and automotive manufacturers are integrating embedded-vision applications in cars in the cause of driver safety.
Jon Cropley, principal analyst at IMS Research said the market for intelligent automotive camera modules alone was estimated at around $300 million in 2011 and is forecast to grow at an average annual rate of over 30% to 2015.
Meanwhile, the market for intelligent video surveillance devices (devices with embedded analytics) was estimated at about $250 million in 2011 and is forecast for annual growth to 2015 of more than 20%, he added.
Biggest and perhaps most established is the market for industrial machine vision hardware (smart sensors, smart cameras, compact vision systems, and machine vision cameras). Cropley's estimate is around $1.5 billion in 2011 with an average annual rate over 10%.
But from the engineering community’s standpoint, Bier said, “Many design engineers, generally, just don’t think about vision, and they still don’t know what’s possible.”
Embedded vision is in fact a “classic long-tail story,” Bier said. “There are thousands of applications; and its market is extremely diverse.” Bier founded Embedded Vision Alliance, an industry association set up to inspire and empower embedded system designers to use vision technology.
Working with the Embedded Vision Alliance, EE Times put together an image gallery that showcases the latest embedded vision-enabled consumer products.
Never miss a word?
That’s a marketing tagline used by Livescribe, a company that developed a platform consisting of a digital pen, digital paper and software apps.When used with digital paper, Livescribe’s pen -- integrated with an infrared camera and a digital audio recorder -- records a conversation while one participant takes notes on digital paper.
Digital paper consists of numerous small black dots in patterns essentially invisible to the human eye, but detectable by the pen’s camera. It allows a user to replay portions of a recording by tapping on the notes – no matter how messy the scribble. Not a single word is lost. A reporter’s dream; a politician's
nightmare.
|
|
|
|
|
Navigate to related information
junko.yoshida
3/23/2012 3:56 PM EDT
The more I learn about this "embedded vision" thing, it is fascinating. As Jeff Bier said during the interview, "We have only scratched the surface," as far as the embedded vision applications are concerned.
What's your favorite "embedded vision" product?
Sign in to Reply
JeffCB
3/23/2012 3:57 PM EDT
You can read about many more cool embedded vision applications, and learn how embedded vision systems work, at www.Embedded-Vision.com.
Sign in to Reply
Bert22306
3/23/2012 6:27 PM EDT
These applications have been developing for some time, even if not strictly under the name of "embedded vision."
What I'm most intrigued about is applying these techniques to privately owned medical devices, with optional communication to your doctor's office. Any number of tests and diagnoses should be doable this way, and potentially more reliable than current methods.
Another application is self-driving cars. Just yesterday, I commented to my wife how in a few years, we won't believe how people could ever have been trusted to drive manually. How reckless of us!
Sign in to Reply
selinz
3/23/2012 9:07 PM EDT
I look forward to putting on a headset that will block my vision with displays that provide me a superset of what I could see without the headset. In several sci fi shows/movies, these have been imagined in various ways. Whether it's as "simple" as having a high def, heads up display in your head, giving you quantitative data on what you are seeing through the eyes of the headset. This would include Automatic IR/visual switching, etc. depending on the enviroment. Automatic zoom and macro capability. (that's right, fellow plus 40ers, no readers necessary!)
Sign in to Reply
t.alex
3/23/2012 11:16 PM EDT
How good is digital pen i am curious? What if there is some bug and it can destroy the content. It can be a nightmare for reporters.
Sign in to Reply
junko.yoshida
3/25/2012 5:51 AM EDT
It actually works very well.
But of course, as every reporter knows, it's more important to understand what your interviewee is saying right on the spot, and ask for clarifications, and to take good notes, rather than depending on your recording or scribbles!
Sign in to Reply
Luis Sanchez
3/23/2012 11:39 PM EDT
Is the first time I hear the term embedded-vision. I think is appropriate. It really is impressive the kind of app's that are coming out. Never thought it was possible to diagnose if you had a little too much alcohol to drink just by a camera scanning your eye. Wow! wait a minute... this app in the iphone and the iphone connected with the car through perhaps Bluetooth... then the iphone can stop the car from starting if the eyes show that the party was really hard. I think this could save lives, don't you?
Sign in to Reply
prabhakar_deosthali
3/24/2012 1:16 AM EDT
In my opinion Embedded vision is a dangerous concept to come as a UI. Because you can do multitasking while listening music with your headphones, while taking on your microphone or the mobile but it is almost impossible if your eye gets engaged in something.
Sign in to Reply
docdivakar
3/26/2012 4:26 PM EDT
@prabhakar_deosthali: the criteria for application of the embedded vision obviously needs to steer clear of situations where it distracts/hinders/obstructs end user activities. Not all applications will be embraced by the user community. I also suspect government or industry regulations will pop up once ergonomic requirements are established.
I do believe there are plenty of industrial apps for embedded vision. Take Video Surveillance for example -the processing of acquired images for facial recognition is making big advances in algorithms using embedded vision. Last week there was an announcement on recognition of 36Million faces per second (not sure what the compute resources behind that number are!):
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-03/video-face-recognition-system-can-sort-through-36-million-faces-second
MP Divakar
Sign in to Reply
hm
3/24/2012 6:28 AM EDT
I may like to see an application where embedded vision can convert lip movements from far distance to spoken English or translate to other language of choice.
Sign in to Reply
sharps_eng
3/24/2012 6:24 PM EDT
It has been a long-awaited dream for developers of audio speech analyser code to get help from lip-reading cues; these are a big help in improving accuracy of speech-to-text. Only now are we getting ubiquitous cameras and the CPU power to clarify what you are saying to your device.
Very important for low-cost computers for non-literate societies.
Sign in to Reply
junko.yoshida
3/25/2012 5:55 AM EDT
Absolutely. By adding another sensor like "vision," you get more information to "interpret" the voice.
Sign in to Reply
Frank Eory
3/28/2012 7:38 PM EDT
I hope the developers of iTranslate are thinking that too. Using the camera for lip reading would be a great supplement to an already amazing app that translates speech & written text.
Sign in to Reply
DrQuine
3/24/2012 9:52 PM EDT
One simple app that could be interesting would be a video meeting conferencing app with a camera that zoomed in on the speaking individual with moving lips. We do it subconsciously.
Sign in to Reply
t.alex
3/25/2012 9:00 AM EDT
Yes, this is very interesting. Based on lip reading, it can regenerate better audio quality.
Sign in to Reply
elctrnx_lyf
3/26/2012 3:59 AM EDT
Embedded vision will certainly help people do lot of things in the future just with the sigh of an eye.
Sign in to Reply
agk
3/26/2012 6:33 AM EDT
A great nice collection of new applications to see and enjoy.Seeing is believing. Cameras connected to computers with AI artificial intelligence can make real support with entertainment to human life.
Sign in to Reply
martin.rowe
3/26/2012 4:07 PM EDT
Old habits die hard. Oscilloscope users cling to knobs. See my blog "A new face," at http://www.tmworld.com/article/520960-A_new_face.php
Sign in to Reply
lurchl
3/26/2012 4:34 PM EDT
I see potential for at least two abuses here -
1. Put on a vision interface headset, and advertisers have *really exclusive* command of your eyeballs;
2. Government can easily eavesdrop on conversations with lip-reading hardware/software.
That said, vision interfaces are just another tool that are probably coming no matter what. The way they're used depends on us.
Voice correlation with lip reading in speech to text for the hearing-impaired would be a wonderful application.
Sign in to Reply
Robotics Developer
3/26/2012 6:29 PM EDT
I have seen the Livescribe pen in action: very impressive, although the digital paper is a hassle. I would like to see vision processing provide the same type of interface as the pen but without special paper. I remember years (and years ago) a "white board" that had a scanner built in so that anything drawn on the 3' x 4' screen (that scrolled for new/fresh screens) could be copied, and sent electronically That was a big help for free flowing conversations!
Sign in to Reply
chanj
3/26/2012 6:48 PM EDT
I particular like the eye lid detection to improve road safety.
There is no doubt vision as UI will be the next big exploring topic. I think there are still a lot that we don't know. In terms of application area, I believe vision, together with other sensors, will certain improve road safety by helping the driver to stay in the lane and providing warning in emergency situation. Another application area would be in gaming. Maybe, in the very near future, gamer can just stare at the desired target instead of using button to toggle between enemies.
Sign in to Reply