Monday, February 28, 2011

Growth in apps

Nytimes says that the growth in apps will reach $38 billion in less than five years.

What are you doing to get a slice of that? ; )

Research in industry

As a researcher, I have a biased view that all big tech companies should have large research labs. However, the jury is still out on whether the corporate world is for or against big private investments in research.

Some good news is that the Kinect's success may relieve the pressure on Microsoft Research. Remember it only takes one big hit to pay the bills for many other failed avenues of research. The BBC has an interesting article about it.

However, a more depressing trend is that some companies are moving away from name-brand research labs and towards a decentralized system where the company funds professors at big schools. The Nytimes has the story about Intel's plans.

This follows a trend in computer science, where funding agencies and industry bigwigs feel that money is better spent on cheaper postdocs and grad students than full time researchers. The tendency to wait until a postdoc is a "star" before hiring means that people are spending much more time in grad school and postdoctoral positions, and pretty much putting their life on hold. Thanks to EJ for this link from CRA.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Microsoft's entrepreneurial drive

Recently Nokia and Microsoft tied up to be a third force in the smartphones arena, after Apple and Google. Nokia has a lot of hardware, but hasn't been able to get the design issues right. They still have phenomenal experience though.

Microsoft actually isn't in such a bad position. They've got cash cows in Office and Windows, and while there is deep competition from both cheap (linux, google web apps) and expensive (apple designer ware) lines, it seems to survive. Then there is Xbox and the successful Kinect.

But a problem with the Nokia-Microsoft endeavor has is that the app "ecosystem" for Windows Mobile is really bad compared to Apple and Google. So it looks like they've come up with ways to get their massive, talented workforce to share some of their development time:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/business/27novel.html?ref=technology

Saturday, February 26, 2011

3D in your hand

Nytimes had an article a while back about stereoscopic displays in mobile devices.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/technology/04novel.html?scp=1&sq=autostereoscopic&st=cse

A little bit of history is in order. If you read Lipton's widely read history of stereoscopy, you'll know that autostereoscopy (or 3D without glasses) was well known in the early days of 3D. The Soviets in fact had built an autostereoscopic cinema theater.

What killed autostereoscopy was that, with a fixed display, there were "sweet spots" or regions where you could see 3D. No one else could fuse the stereo pair. For example, the Soviet 3D cinema theater had a single row of seats straight down the middle!

The genius of recent mobile displays, is that they solve this problem by putting a display in the hand of each and every person in the audience. There is an approximate 3D sweet spot, about a half a foot away from the mobile device. Even if its a bit off, the human has control of the device and moves it about so that autostereoscopy works. This is why you don't need any complicated software. Just the same tech from the 1930s but with modern mobile devices.

Seems to work amazingly. The Economist calls it magical:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/01/video_games_0

Pocket projectors!

I wanted to put up an old article by David Pogue, whose tech blogs and general enthusiasm is a constant inspiration, about pocket projectors.

For those of you who don't know, projectors are where camera phones were five years ago. One day everyone will have them. And we have positively no idea what to do with them in terms of computer vision or graphics. I have some ideas, but I'll post them later once I'm published/patented ;)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/technology/personaltech/25pogue.html?scp=5&sq=pocket%20projector&st=cse

Printing is the next big thing

The Economist has a massive report on 3D printing. They are agreeing with this blog in believing that 3D printing will enable a lot of people to create devices that were either beyond their skill or budget.

http://www.economist.com/node/18114221?story_id=18114221

For MicroCV, the advent of 3D printing will mean that any computer vision researcher can print optics, templates, LEDs, lens holders and, of course, imaging sensors at almost any size. We should be able to port every computer vision algorithm to micro, and even nano, machines.

Printing organs

The Economist has a really interesting article about a company named Organovo that is taking 3D printing to the next level: they are printing human organs.

Ok so they are starting with skin and flat cells, but still. With the advances in stem cells, it wont be long before they start printing retinal skins, maybe with electronic interfaces!

http://www.economist.com/node/15543683

Sunday, February 13, 2011

About Micro Computer Vision



This blog is about Micro Computer Vision or MicroCV. Computer vision involves creating algorithms for images and video.

MicroCV deals with computer vision for (1) Mobile and (2) Micro/nano devices.

Mobile vision is driven by industry, which makes amazing machines like the iPhone. These may have cameras, pocket projectors and even stereoscopic displays. Our goal in mobile vision is to figure out if these devices (meant for the marketplace) have an impact on research by either enabling new algorithms or making old ones easier.

Micro vision is driven by researchers, who use the amazing tools from 3D printing and related areas to build vision systems for very very small platforms. Our goal in micro vision, is to make computer vision work under the extreme constraints of limited volume, mass, power consumption and computing.

MicroCV will revolutionize the next wave of small devices, which include microrobots and other tiny machines. I am researcher in this area, and I use this blog to keep track of news articles, webpages, academic papers and other sources of information.

Feel free to join the discussion!