Slashdot Mirror
Smart Camera Tells Tobacco From Marijuana
An anonymous reader writes "A new smart camera technology not only takes a picture but also assays chemical composition, allowing photographers to tell whether that hand-rolled cigarette contains tobacco or marijuana. Designed to speed industrial inspection systems — such as detecting whether food is spoiled — the new smart camera includes spectral filters that make images of corn fields appear differently from hemp. Spectral cameras have been available for decades, but this microchip version should be cheap enough for almost any application."
At least in the short term. Once it catches on, there will be a way to circumvent it.
I got here through a series of tubes
I'm sure we can all get behind this fantastic use of technology that will further the demonisation of a plant.
so the camera can tell the difference between the color green and brown? Wow!
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
I usually mix!
I couldn't find either of these words in TFA. Whoever wrote the summary needs to put down the bong for a while.
Perhaps I missed it in the article, but it mentions nothing about marijuana or hand rolled cigarettes. It talks about real roses and silk roses. I suppose, in theory, it could do this, but I think it would tell what kinda of paper they used to roll the joint before it tells us whats inside the joint.
take what i say with a grain of salt, a dash of pepper, a pinch of oregano, and an itty bitty little drip of faygo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9MeaaCwBW28#t=34s
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
I can see city police departments calling in orders for this right away. Just think of all the tickets and arrests they'll get out of one of these things!
At least in the short term...
Yeah, wait, what are we talking about?
Who would want a tricorder that couldn't do spectral analysis? We're almost there!
That someone was finally able to tell the difference between a corn field and a hemp plantage just by looking at it.
Fandroids hate facts.
Hemp is *NOT* marijuana. They are related in that they are both cannabis, but they are not the same plant. You can't get high by smoking hemp (well, maybe you could... but Hemp's THC content is over an order of magnitude less than that found in marijuana, so you'd have to smoke at least ten times as much).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
There's always about 80% of commenters here whining about how new technology is going to ruin our lives.
Just give me some good old fashioned "dumb" fire and I'll do this for you all day long.
Thought thinks itself.
From TFA:
The system-on-chip (SoC) solution can accurately distinguish between objects that appear virtually identical using traditional red-green-blue imaging chips.
The sentence immediately preceding that one, claims the product senses outside the visual spectrum ("hyper-spectral") and that it can perform remote spectral analysis, but somehow it uses just a good ol' RGB sensor.
"Crude and slow, clansman. Your attack was no better than that of a clumsy child."
There goes my business of selling oregano by the ounce in sandwich baggies...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Here is another article, which is both more informative, and doesn't have an annoying constantly scrolling twitter feed to distract you while you try to read.
Heck, I'll even kick in for the shipping for the, ahem, samples.
I, sir, accept your challenge.
Read the article. This might be able to tell weed from tobacco in the field, but not covered over by paper; it has no penetrative power. (Neither application is mentioned in the article, by the way.)
I've always been able to tell a corn field from a hemp one without a camera. Also, I can tell a hemp farm from a marijuana farm, as there there is more than a meter difference in plant height.
Perhaps that is the desired effect: Stop people from growing marijuana by creating a strong correlation "growing marijuana" "stoners climbing over your fence".
What are they talking about? The article says absolutely nothing about differentiating hand-rolled cigarettes, nothing about tobacco, and nothing about marijuana.
All that's new is SoC. The challenge with stopping hemp cultivation isn't a detection problem, it's an enforcement one.
It's just that crimes with a victim are so much more likely to be reported.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Such as for example, spectral camouflage. Any method that depends on identifying spectra of compounds in a complex mixture depends on spectral deconvolution. Spectral deconvolution is easy to fool, but adding a compound that provides a "difference spectrum" , compensating for the differences in tobacco versus marijuana smoke.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
I wish there was a camera to tell oregano from marijuana. That little sophomore shit at the high school in my neighborhood sold me fugazi again.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Would be a smart camera that can tell when a summary on slashdot includes information found nowhere within TFA.
The lines blur with the relatively new autoflower strains which are hybrids of Sativa/Indica and Ruderalis.
They seem to be very popular with guerilla outdoor growers due to their low height and robustness.
...to tell the difference between oregano and weed!
Thieving dealers...
Windows 10 is great - I used it to download Linux.
lets not forget the strong smell that anyone can smell a good distance away.
The DEA has had the National Guard flying helicopters over the countryside for a long time now, searching for marijuana fields. If I remember correctly, those hemp plants show up quite differently in either infrared or ultraviolet photography. I'm not "up on" this stuff, but I do know that the state regularly flies patrol missions in my area each summer and autumn.
Damn, this is slashdot - someone probably expects me to research this shit before I post it. But, "Everyone knows that they are looking for marijuana!"
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The Burden of Tobacco Use
Tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of disease, disability, and death in the United States. Each year, an estimated 443,000 people die prematurely from smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke, and another 8.6 million live with a serious illness caused by smoking. Despite these risks, approximately 46.6 million U.S. adults smoke cigarettes. Smokeless tobacco, cigars, and pipes also have deadly consequences, including lung, larynx, esophageal, and oral cancers.
http://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/publications/aag/osh.htm
I tried to find the article they had on deaths caused by marijuana, but they don't have one. Lucky we've got this new fancy new camera to make sure the American people are smoking the right stuff.
A device that lets you tell if someone has snuck tobacco into your spliff, without having to taste the smoke.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I'm not sure about the countryside, but this has been done in cities for a while. It's pretty common for people who are growing cannabis to do put halogen lights up in their attic so that the plants can get bright light for a long period. Because this is above the layer of normal house insulation, their roofs show up as warmer than the surroundings.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Read and weep, ye of too much faith.
Troll 2.0 Fear my asocial networking!
I'm not sure about the countryside, but this has been done in cities for a while. It's pretty common for people who are growing cannabis to do put halogen lights up in their attic so that the plants can get bright light for a long period. Because this is above the layer of normal house insulation, their roofs show up as warmer than the surroundings.
halogen? bad choice tbh, There are really only two choices of lamp types for indoor growers, high intensity discharge lamps (HID lamps) and florescent lamps. Other lamps such as standard household bulbs or halogen are just not up to the job of growing cannabis. They convert most of the power they consume into heat not light or produce a light spectrum that won`t support good plant growth. .
there are even a new breed of colour balanced LED's which are becoming better by the year. i have a friend who use them in the vegetative stage then moves the plants to the other half of his growing room to use HID's in the flowering stage to great effect.
Halogens, as mentioned above and not efficient and produce a MASSIVE hear signature leading to what you state above.
growers with a brain use more efficient and balanced lighting which provide results which give not just a cheaper electricity bill but a far groovier stone!
Could be interesting for Amateur Astronomers?
I don't usually complain about the editors; they do a good enough job that the site is still useful by its community and conversation. But in this case I'm making an exception.
Timothy, did you even click through to the article AT ALL? I did, and it doesn't mention marijuana, cigarettes, or anything similar. The article just says that the camera does chemical composition, and it's not entirely clear that it could even do what's suggested in your summary.
Can we have a "No Original Research" rule like Wikipedia, please? It's great that you have your theories, editors, and they're completely welcome, but POST THEM AS COMMENTS. The summary spot is supposed to be a summary of the the fine article(s), and not much more; especially not your "educated guesses" presented as fact.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
"Everyone knows that they are looking for marijuana!"
"The Man" is always trying to bring a brother down. It's true.
The oxidation emission of organic molecules is NOT easy to interpret, at least not any easier than the reflectance spectrum! You would be getting the spectrum of the molecular orbitals of each intermediate oxidation product, which for large molecules like THC and nicotine is a lot of confusing information.
However, the parent post makes a good point, in that visible spectra are very difficult to interpret, because they rarely show complex structure. The camera goes up to 10,000/cm but spectra in that area are still electronic transitions. It's like trying to read a book where each word is represented by the letter that occurs in it most.