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Cellphone App Developed that Could Allow For 'Pocket Supercomputers'
Jack Spine writes "A robotics researcher at Accenture has given a demonstration of a 'Pocket Supercomputer' — a phone behaving like a thin client. It can be used to send images and video of objects in real time to a server where they can be identified and linked to relevant information, which can then be sent back to the user. 'The camera on the phone is used to take a video of an object — such as a book ... By offloading the processing from a mobile device onto a server, there are few limits on the size and processing power available to be used for the storage and search of images.' To pinpoint the features necessary to identify an object, the image is run through an algorithm called Scale-Invariant Feature Transform, or SIFT, a technology developed by academic David Lowe. The software extracts feature points from a jpeg and makes a match against images in the database. If a match exists then the software on the server retrieves information and sends it back to the user's phone. A 'three-dimensional' image of an object can also be uploaded onto the phone, to look at the virtual object from different angles. The motion-tracking technology Accenture uses for this is a free library of algorithms called Open Computer Vision."
All boobies examined with the low quality phone cam will resemble Lara Croft.
Hell, it might make the same distinction if you take a picture of some melons.
liqbase
Didn't someone already do this?
By offloading the processing from a mobile device onto a server, there are few limits on the size and processing power available to be used for the storage and search of images
That's like saying my TV set at home can be called a miniature television studio.
Mods please erase above comment. Link goes to site with hostile javascript, images.
... the Borg system?
Wasn't there a segment on NPR about a cellphone with an integrated 'reader' that did OCR on pictures taken with your cell phone? I could definately see OCR as something that you would want to offload to a server, potentially one designed just for that.
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We really need to stop throwing the supercomputer term around. How do you really define supercomputer? Is it based on number of calcs per second it can do? Size? Hell, my PSP has more power in it than room-filling monstrosities from the 50's...
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Or you could open the book, and turn its pages yourself
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-- Boycott Shell
Funny, I recently read a similar idea in a SF short story in Asimov's*. The character had built a supercomputer out of dumpster-dived wifi-enabled smartphones. Mesh networking, voice recognition, it's all included.
:)
Anybody wanna try implementing it?
*Hormiga Canyon by Rudy Rucker and (?). Can't remember authors exactly, and Asimov's magazine website doesn't provide a bilbiography. In fact, their whole website is pretty shitty by today's standards. For an SF magazine, the irony is terrible.
Misleading titles? Inflammatory blurbs? Keep in mind that Slashdot is a tabloid.
OK, so now we can take cell phone pictures of hot women walking down the street, upload them to the supercomputer, and have them send us back a 3-D image of what she looks like naked. Not to mention maybe we can get a video send back of what she would look like engaged in various sexual acts... You heard it hear first, this will probably be the first and most popular use of this application and technology.
"Know but never fear the consequences of your actions."
While this sounds cool, it interests me more because of the fact that the Open Computer Vision algorithms are open sourced and in this case by Intel's research groups. While I might prefer if another microprocessor company was more dominant, there are some areas where Intel's interests diverge from the unholy Wintel alliance, and in these areas they do some really good stuff.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Something sort of similar already seen in Japan. Look in any Japanese magazine, and in almost every add you will find a 2D square barcode. Point your cell phone camera at it, and it will look up the information. Basically, it is just a URL, but it is a standard thing over there. Really nice.
I usually keep my phone in my pocket. After even a short time, I bet they will have tons of data to analyze about the inside of my pocket. This is important research.
Please don't use "umm" or "err" or "erm".
It's just a thin client on a mobile phone, and not an especially interesting one. They use SIFT, so they don't stand a chance in hell of doing anything useful on the phone. There are other, modern, much more lightweight ways of identifying features. It would be more interesting performing as much processing on the phone as possible (for instance to reduce bandwidth and/or latency).
Other than that, it's a neat hack.
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Anyone falling to that SO deserves it.
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I suspect a few images are a break compared to slashdot itself, which has such an insanely complex javascript dependency that firefox keeps popping up complaining about it hanging?
The character had built a supercomputer out of dumpster-dived wifi-enabled smartphones.
Fox already did this on the third episode of Sarah Connor:
SPOILER
Kid drops out of CalTech, supports himself as a cellphone salesman, and, in his spare time, builds a sentient super computer out of commodity parts.
So if I understand the story someday I could use my phone and home supercomputer to identify a book. "Hey what's that?". "Hang on a minite". Click, beep, beep, beep, ring, ring, wirrrrr.... "It's a book! And I can buy it on Amazon, what a suprise!"
40 to 400 Teraflops at current numbers.
Dear Lord, JAVASCRIPT AND IMAGES? Won't somebody think of THE CHILDREN??
Ron Paul 2012
Through some kind of tube? Or just dump it on the back of a truck?
Accenture has people who do research?
My experience with Accenture is that they rob financial institutions by claiming to sell computing and management expertise.
Instead, they bill junior people learning Word at $1000/day, because they are Accenture (with a capital A) and the principal who made the deal went to school with some high exec at the firm being fleeced.
If there is any actual expertise at Accenture, that is indeed news.
Or maybe you could walk around looking through smart glasses, with many things you see enhanced by unobtrusive tags. When you shop, it can tell you which items are made in sweatshops, or are cheaper somewhere else you plan to go later, or have a recall notice. When you drive, it can flag cars that have been identified as risky drivers. When you deal with people, you can see whether other people like you have identified them as trustworthy.
On a phone it's a little more limited, but at least you could get the product information while shopping.
Their use of a cellphone is pretty lackluster, other than as a proof of concept. The capabilities of SIFT are new to me, and impressive as hell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code
"A QR Code is a matrix code (or two-dimensional bar code) created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The "QR" is derived from "Quick Response", as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed. QR Codes are common in Japan where they are currently the most popular type of two dimensional code.
Although initially used for tracking parts in vehicle manufacturing, QR Codes are now used in a much broader context spanning both commercial tracking applications as well as convenience-oriented applications aimed at mobile phone users. QR Codes storing addresses and URLs may appear in magazines, on signs, buses, business cards or just about any object that a user might need information about. A user having a camera phone equipped with the correct reader software can scan the image of the QR Code causing the phone's browser to launch and redirect to the programmed URL."
But, in the good 'ol US of A, many stores would KICK OUT patrons who openly comparison shop. In Japan, it's the norm, otherwise QR would have flopped, I think. Even on the street, I was handed adverts having QR codes on them. Makes life a HELLUVA lot nicer to not have to type in or use a search engine when a QR will do either, and quickly.
More URLs:
QR-Code Generator:
http://qrcode.kaywa.com/
DENSO WAVE INCORPORATED
http://www.denso-wave.com/qrcode/index-e.html
But, even USPS & UPS and such entities use them, too, seemingly to replace get around damaged bar codes. IIRC, QR Codes are multiply (plee) redundant, so damaging part of it still does not prevent extraction of information.
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*watches the evolution of Earth's first true AI's optical system*
Could you give a quick list of those? I would love to read up on them.
Thanks!
I had no idea http://www.accenture.com/ had robotics researchers. When I was working there, developing anything new was to be avoided if at all possible.
Google developed an application that allows you to turn your desktop into a huge database.
It is available for general public @ http://www.google.com/
There's an open-source J2ME QR Code reader available from Google, it's part of their Android platform:
http://code.google.com/p/zxing/
...is the supercomputer. It has millions of (semi-)intelligent processors craniofacially attached to its nodes. Though parallelism is rampant, effective clustering and resource allocation are rare to be found, that with all those processors just idly blabbering away at each other most of the time...
With apologies to Sun, they were there first.
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