DARPA's Cortically-Coupled Computer Vision System

BluePariah writes "Wired News has an article on a 'cortically coupled computer vision' system being developed at Columbia University and funded by the ever-curious folks at DARPA. Essentially, it uses the extremely powerful visual recognition ability of the human brain and couples it with a computer's raw processing power to allow a user wearing an EEG cap to filter through scores of digital images at high-speed and pick out something of interest. This has applications in military intelligence, face-recognition, anti-terrorism, and hunting down replicants."

Comments

Completely back-to-front

[tygerstripes]

TFA:

Researchers at Columbia University are combining the processing power of the human brain with computer vision to develop a novel device that will allow people to search through images ten times faster than they can on their own.

So, basically completely the opposite to the /. description, to whit:

it uses the extremely powerful visual recognition ability of the human brain and couples it with a computer's raw processing power

.

I picked that up within 5 seconds of clicking the link. Sort it out, editors.

Re:Completely back-to-front

[Scratch-O-Matic]

Actually, I think they got it right. The point is the ability of the human brain to recognize patterns at a glance. For example, I can look at a thousand different ways to represent the face of a celebrity, and hit a 'yes' or 'no' button almost instantaneously to identify matches. These images would include crisp color photographs, blurry black and whites, caricatures, sketches, silhouettes, etc...maybe even ASCII. Currently the human brain can do this much faster and more reliably than a computer. The article writers chose to call this "processing power" while the submitter chose to call it "visual recognition." Both are fair descriptions.

sounds frustrating

[Cycon]

Sounds to me a bit frustrating for the user.

Imaging sitting there for an hour or more, looking at endless streams of boring security footage. Every time something interesting flashed by, the machine would record the brain activity, but the stream would just continue. Say you saw the image of a known terrorist flash by, it seems to be human nature would make you want to take a closer look - natural reaction would be to want to pay a little more attention. Unless the stream of images slows down a little when a "hit" is registered, the whole process would be a bit of a tease.

Who else thinks this needs to be tagged "creepy?"

[Valdrax]

But I guess this technology switch directions as well, switching the roles and using human brain as co-processors in surveillance and security applications. Any volunteers for this?

Gives a shuddersome new meaning to human resources.

Re:Slaved by machines ???..

[Prog_Burner]

Comments like this amaze me, they're using what at a basic level is just an interface device, like your keyboard, mouse, trackball, clickwheel, touchpad or whatever. I'm sure you're using punchcards or dip switches to enter your post here, because otherwise you might become a slave to the keyboard and mouse!

Guess what, every interface is just a way to get brain impulses from your brain to the computer (OMFG, run for the hills!) Whether my fingers happen to be in between doesn't really matter to me. If I coud put on a helmet and get a 2000% work increase, I probably would and I wouldn't consider myself any more enslaved than I already do, sitting here for 8 hours a day.

I really, really hope that I'm responding to a sarcastic post that went over my head, because otherwise it's a very scary post.

Re:Next stop...

[dr_dank]

The "funny" moderation doesn't add to karma anymore. It's not uncommon for mods to mod up as another reason to give the poster some karma for their hillarity.