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MIT Research Amplifies Invisible Detail In Video
An anonymous reader writes "MIT researchers have invented an algorithm which is able to amplify motion in video that is invisible to the naked eye — such as the motion of blood pulsing through a person's face, or the breathing of an infant. The algorithm — which was invented almost by accident — could find applications in safety, medicine, surveillance, and other areas. 'The system is somewhat akin to the equalizer in a stereo sound system, which boosts some frequencies and cuts others, except that the pertinent frequency is the frequency of color changes in a sequence of video frames, not the frequency of an audio signal. The prototype of the software allows the user to specify the frequency range of interest and the degree of amplification. The software works in real time and displays both the original video and the altered version of the video, with changes magnified.'"
Wish youtube wasn't blocked at work.
Although, if this looks like what I think it looks like, I could see this having a lot of potential in the movie industry as well. Specifically enhancing things otherwise unnoticed could make for some very creepy footage.
Privacy-violating nudity scans.
We already have technology for that: Backscatter X-ray and millimeter wave scanners. You can find them in most major airports.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
n/t
Protect your browser with the Force Safe Search add-on
Now every recording device has the potential to become a lie detector.
sudo make me a sandwich
For employers, or even police: you could easily detect emotional flushes in someone's face when asked certain questions, i.e., a lie detector of sorts. Also, think poker players with this software built into their "Google Glasses".
There's no place like 127.0.0.1
No, that creepy footage in films is what FX departments are for - and they do it far more artistically.
This is bringing all the creepy remote monitoring shit to your local and federal law enforcement departments, along with every other eye-in-the-sky system in use by government and industry.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Here's iCarly.
Here's iCarly enhanced..... you can see right through their shirts! (Watch; you'll see.)
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
to long-range-surveillance systems that magnify subtle motions, to contactless lie detection based on pulse rate.
This is the first thing they're going to do with it.
All the other applications might come afterwards.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Sounds like an essential component for a Voight-Kampff machine.
Good lord, hack-a-day featured this over 2 1/2 weeks ago. In fact, there's already a bloody iPhone app!
I didn't RTFA or watch the video (good /.er and Flash disabled, respectively)
If you click through to the article they have HTML5 videos served from YouTube there, so there is no need for Flash. Why Slashdot is still embedding videos as Flash is a mystery to me.
adding its own bias based on naive attribution of moving areas to distinct objects? Then a human won't see important details behind things that software deemed worthy of emphasizing
This isn't AI. It's actually fairly simple image processing. It has no bias or sense or worth. Yes, it can be tuned - by a human operator who will most likely know what they want to have their attention drawn to. How important are a few pixels in the background behind a barely breathing body when you're searching for a hypothermia victim?
If the concerns you raise had any impact on a particular scenario, the operator can just use their own eyes or switch off the processing.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Anyone else notice the Motion Magnification page was last edited September 12th 2005?
So, to review the thread on a quite amazing algorithm, so far we have: privacy-violating nudity scans, application of any video feed as lie detector, government surveillance, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Slashdot. News For Paranoids. Comments that don't matter.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
What if the undead wanted their privacy hidden? Maybe they don't want everyone screaming and yelling when they enter a room and just want to unlive normal lives?
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
I think the novelty is in a new motion tracking technique. The video starts with color change tracking (probably because it's so dramatic) but switches to motion about halfway through. The MIT news report closes with a UC Berkeley professor's comments:
"This approach is both simpler and allows you to see some things that you couldn't see with that old approach," Agrawala says. "The simplicity of the approach makes it something that has the possibility for application in a number of places. I think we'll see a lot of people implementing it because it's fairly straightforward."
I knew I saw this stuff before... Siggraph 2005 http://people.csail.mit.edu/celiu/motionmag/motionmag.html
Red Dwarf - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUFkb0d1kbU
I mean, if you're going to break the laws of physics, might as well go for broke. :)
I've found that cynical comments in general get modded higher than more optimistic ones. The assumption seems to be made that if you're saying something bad about something, you know what you're talking about and appear wise. Someone praising something on the other hand, that's either a shill or a naive person. I guess pessimism is contagious.
Uh, and that's dumb and we're probably all going to die somehow as a direct result of that pessimism...