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Sports Highlights via AI
nazarijo writes "Found via Brian Chin's Weblog, it looks like scientists and researchers at Microsoft are working on ways to automatically discover game highlights. This article in the New Scientist discusses several research groups, some in Europe, working to make these ideas a reality. Microsoft research is doing this, too, with highlights from the Mariner's shown as examples. A choice quote from the end of the MSR piece: 'By hitting the highlights of baseball games, we get to view only the best parts of multimedia life. And who knows what's next? Maybe political speeches will become shorter, or the eleven o'clock news will last only 5 minutes, the witty banter between news anchors edited out.'"
Maybe political speeches will become shorter, or the eleven o'clock news will last only 5 minutes, the witty banter between news anchors edited out.'
They have this now. It's called the internet. news.google.com is a great example. Pick the news that you want it, when you want it - without the witty banter!
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dont mean to sound paranoid, but couldnt people controlling these systems control the media? people that could censor shit even more than it is today?
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You could probably pick out the highlights JUST from gauging crowd reaction, without once looking at what's happening on the field...
Usually during big plays and events worthy of next morning's [espn] sportscenter; the crowd usually gets extremely loud, in a short burst of time. They [software makers] could use this to their advantage, and record footage when the db level is above a certain amount, say 100 [give or take 15 secs.
Ok, doesnt really make sense, but consider this. How many people want software deciding what is important to see and what is not? During WWII, if the ENIAC decided whether I was to recieve medical treatment on the battlefield over some other person, I would be quite pissed...even if I was chosen to recieve treatment.
Basically, I view this as another method of limiting something we are already freely available to do, based on our own will. Even if it is an opt-in thing, people will opt-in...and before you know it we will be a few drones watching only what companies want us to. Sound like Harrison Bergeron to me.
Dont get me wrong, this is a very cool technology, and I completely support the development of it. I just dont like the niche it is meant to fill. AKA, Media censoring.
Wait a second...did they say less political speech times? Holy crap! Less Bush! Where do I sign up!?!..........See my point?
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I could definately do without the witty banter on the news (yet another reason to get your news online from Google, the NY Times, the BBC, whomever), but I am greatly troubled by the idea that political speeches could get even shorter. Short political speeces are the worst aspect of politics in my opinion. Why deliver a twenty minute oratory that fully explores and explains your views on an issue, when you can just repeat some trite soundbyte that will fit into the alloted 20 seconds on the news? Seriously, have you ever listened to an entire political speech? I would say that fewer than 10% of people ever have. Those who have would tell you that most speeches are just jam-packed with soundbytes (they hate our freedom, etc.) rather than actual 'content.' It's because of the way we like to have information condensed and pre-chewed for us. Of course, if you're interested in something, you can always do the extra research to find out more about it, but who has the time?
I think that the politics problem extends, to a point, to sports as well. For example, I find watching baseball mercilessly boring, but I enjoy watching the highlights. But do I get all the nuances of the game or really learn anything about the players? No. I'm guessing that for most people this isn't a problem and that's why we're headed to the scenario outlined in the article. I just think it's too bad.
... turning to the 3-D map, we see an unmistakable con
This is easy, simply track what segments of the game everyone rewinds in Tivo. We know they can already do this! They anounce how many times Janets Breast was reviewed!
Well if it doesn't exist yet, look for a cross between a bonzi buddy, clippy, desktop girl, asian chick, and windows narrator comming soon.
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Like baseball, I've always assumed that the length of a cricket match was one of the beloved features to its devotees. As baseball fanatic George Will has pointed out, baseball is the only major team sport without a clock.
If you cut a baseball game to its "highlights", you're really missing the game. I assume it must be the same way in cricket. It's gotta be, because the game utterly baffles me.
Isn't this a job much better accomplished by a person? A well trained person at that.
For example, on DirecTV, the NFL Sunday Ticket package delivered 3-5 minute highlights for every game. However, the highlights on NFL primetime (also about 3-5 minutes per game) were edited with so much more flare, personality, and smart analysis that there was no comparison. Same game, often the same shots, but the human factors made all the difference.
For events broadcast to wide audiences, why would you not want a talented editor to cut the footage? Is the technology going to be cheaper than a good editor? I doubt it.
Two things about your comment:
1. Document summary (text summarization) is nothing like video summary
2. Text summarization is nothing new. Early papers date back to 1958, (more). MS Word has had it (Tools | Autosummarize) since 1997.
It all goes downhill from first post
Automatically picking out highlights? Cool.
But the "political speeches will become shorter" idea scares the hell out of me. Hiding behind an "artificially" intelligent program would be the perfect way for someone to censor broadcasted information to their own ends.
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