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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."
"You will think a million monkeys are out there banging on keyboards."
Those must be pretty small monkeys, in order to fit two of them on a keyboard to make love. Golden lion marmosets, I presume?
Where were you when the voynix came?
If this technology feeds a series of digital images directly into the brain, what would happen when connected to the brain of a blind person? Would the person, with time, be able to interpret the new information?
I imagine if this is the case, then connecting it to a camera worn by the user can possibly allow the person to see again.
This research actually make sense. We should call these people "Watchers". They can look over thousands of photographs of wanted persons, and then sit them in front of sensitive security camera feeds, played at 2X or 3X normal speed. Every hour, review the still images of those portions of the video that the watcher's brain triggered. When multiple watchers trigger the same still images, make those the highest priority to investigate.
Even non-sensitive feeds can be used. McDonalds and Burger King drive through camera's could be routed to thousands of "watchers". ATM cameras, traffic cameras, etc.
How to keep Watchers from going insane is another story...have them work 1 day on, 1 day off, etc...