Can Startup Bubbli Turn Geotagged Photos Into Matrix-esque Augmented Reality?

BY KIT EATONWed Feb 9, 2011

Startup Bubbli just raised $2 million in funding from August Capital, which will help it in its mission to build "the Matrix (minus the sentient AI)." What's it all about?

Bubbli's home page is mystical, to say the least. It really does say its mission statement is to build the Matrix, but there's a string of text that gives us some big clues: "Take a look in your pocket," it suggests, "You probably have a smartphone. You're looking at something that governments used to pay millions of dollars to launch into space. You presumably launched your device into your back pocket for merely a few benjamins." So we know this is smartphone-centric. But then the text goes on:

While you were out shopping: Thousands of brilliant papers have been published in computer vision about understanding the world around you through a camera chained to a workstation in a basement. The algorithms need to be set free. Why liberate the algorithms? The better we understand reality through a camera lens, the better we can replicate it elsewhere. After all, our eyes are just light sensors, what does it matter that the light that goes into your eyes is reflected off of an object from the sun or comes from a digital display?The company is trying to recruit three programmers, including a computer-vision expert, and will soft launch at the upcoming TED event.

Bubbli's site has resulted in some speculation online thanks to this mystery, and the fact that some of the site's support has come from John Doerr, who injected massive amounts of cash into Twitter--a venture that has done pretty well. Doerr noted he'd seen Bubbli, and thus had "seen the future."

But what can we infer from Bubbli's site? It seems the firm is planning something pretty impressive. Bubbli has realized that when all of us, by the million, snap photos and videos (by the billion) of our daily events, we're recording a rich digital story of the world--with accurate GPS locations, angular information and digital compass data (in some cases), so that it's possible to work out precisely where the images were created.


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FROM DVICE

Smiley face spy cam delivers secret video with feel good design

The last thing a cadre of stormtroopers, or the subject of a sting operation is expecting is a smiley face button concealing a spy cam, which is exactly what makes this device a must have for amateur covert ops.

The Smile Name Badge Sports HD DVR can take still pictures and record video and audio all from the surreptitious confines of your lapel. Powered by a rechargeable lithium ion battery and equipped with a Micro SDHC Card slot for 2 gigabytes of memory, or two hours of recording, you can pick up the ultimate peace lover's spy tool for just $35 here.

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FROM POPULAR SCIENCE/ NEW YORK TIMES

Smart Computer-Vision Systems To Spot Prison Riots Before They Happen

Add corrections officers to the list of workers at risk of being replaced by machines. Recently demonstrated computer-vision systems can analyze imagery provided by cameras perched in prison yards, recognizing faces, gestures, and unfolding incidents and warning guards if, say, two groups of inmates appear hostile. It’s one of a smattering of experimental computer-vision systems highlighted in a New York Times piece examining how smart, observant computers may soon document our every move.

Computer-vision isn’t new – researchers have been developing the technology as long as they’ve been chasing artificial intelligence. But recent strides could soon introduce machine observers into many corners of society, from institutions like hospitals and schools to the workplace and public streets. Computer vision systems can now read a person’s face to determine his or her heart rate, register a person’s emotional response to a product, or recognize behavioral patterns.

Technology, Clay Dillow, artificial intelligence, computer vision, darpa, gorgon stare, machine vision, robotsAs such, many see computer-vision as the future of robotics. DARPA is certainly wise to its security and counterterrorism potential, having launched a program called Mind’s Eye to develop machines that can analyze visual data and communicate it to other computers or humans, even making decisions based on what they see. And perhaps there’s no better example of its proliferation than Microsoft’s Kinect addition for Xbox 360, which introduces a machine vision peripheral into the living room (the company is reportedly flirting with the idea of using the Kinect to target marketing to viewers and measure their responses to it).

The implications of that kind of tech are vast; whereas human observers can be distracted, lazy, or overwhelmed, robot observers are always vigilant and able to draw on huge databases of information. Mashed up with a citywide surveillance system like those common in the UK, facial recognition software could locate and track a lost child or a suspected evildoer while at the same time monitoring traffic patterns and issuing weather advisories.

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FROM PHYSORG

“This study has implications for the fight against anti-social behaviour. For example if signs for CCTV cameras used pictures of eyes instead of cameras they could be more effective.”

Eye See you


Researchers at Newcastle University alternated hanging posters of staring human faces and posters of flowers on the walls of a cafe.  They then counted the number of people who cleaned their plates and rubbish away after finishing their meal in both situations.

In a paper, which is published this week online in the American Оournal Evolution and Human Behavior, the research team, lead by Dr Melissa Bateson and Dr Daniel Nettle of the Centre for Behaviour and Evolution, describe their findings.

During periods when the posters of faces were on the walls, watching over the diners, twice as many people cleaned up, compared to the periods when the pictures of flowers were overlooking the diners, when more litter was left for cafe workers to clear away. 

In a previous study in 2006 the same scientists looked at the impact of images of eyes on contributions to an honesty box in a tea room. They found that people put nearly three times more money in the box when there were eyes compared with flowers.

For this follow-on experiment, psychology student, Max Ernest-Jones, eager to explore whether the honesty box findings would extend to other forms of cooperation, spent many hours sitting inconspicuously in the corner of the café recording customers’ littering behaviour.

Dr Bateson, who led the research, said: “These findings reinforce the conclusion from our previous research, that the presence of eye images can encourage co-operative behaviour. We think that the images of eyes work by making people feel watched. We care what other people think about us, and hence we behave better when we feel we are being observed.

“We found that the impact of the posters was a lot greater at times when the cafe was quiet. This makes total sense, because we would expect real people to have the greatest effect on the feeling of being watched and hence swamp the effect of the posters during busy times.

“This study has implications for the fight against anti-social behaviour. For example if signs for CCTV cameras used pictures of eyes instead of cameras they could be more effective.”


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FROM PHYSORG

GPS not working? A shoe radar may help you find your way
December 1, 2010


(PhysOrg.com) -- The prevalence of global positioning system (GPS) devices in everything from cars to cell phones has almost made getting lost a thing of the past. But what do you do when your GPS isn’t working? Researchers from North Carolina State University and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) have developed a shoe-embedded radar system that may help you find your way.

There are situations where GPS is unavailable, such as when you’re in a building, underground or in places where a satellite connection can be blocked by tall buildings or other objects,” says Dr. Dan Stancil, co-author of a paper describing the research and professor and head of NC State’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “So what do you do without satellites?”
One solution is to use inertial measurement units (IMUs), which are electronic devices that measure the forces created by acceleration (and deceleration) to determine how quickly you are moving and how far you have moved. The technology works in conjunction with GPS, with the IMU tracking your movement after you lose a GPS signal – and ultimately providing you with location data relevant to your last known location via GPS. For example, if you entered a cave and lost your GPS signal, you could use the IMU to retrace your steps to the last known GPS location and find your way back out.


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Prof to drill camera into own skull

Al-Qaeda hacker set for third eye

An assitant professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts will embed a digicam into the back of his head as part of a year-long art piece — and some of his fellow faculty aren't too happy about it.

The Iraqi-born American artist Wafaa Bilal has been commissioned by a new museum in Qatar to drill the camera into his head and have it take pictures at one-minute intervals for a year, with the images to be displayed in the museum — Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art — after it opens in Doha on December 30.

Bilal declined to comment on the project, entitled "The 3rd I", to The Wall Street Journal, which reported it on Tuesday,

In classic artspeak, the museum's promo materials describe "The 3rd I" as being "a comment on the inaccessibility of time, and the inability to capture memory and experience."

Some of the NYU faculty, however, describe having an active camera embedded in an active professor's skull as an invasion of students' privacy.

"Obviously you don't want students to be under the burden of constant surveillance; it's not a good teaching environment," associate chairman of Bilal's photography and imaging department Fred Ritchin told the WSJ.

The department chairwoman Deborah Willis says that when Bilal informed her of his planned headcam, she asked: "What if students are upset? What if you're documenting what they don't want you to see?"

The department is still mulling how to handle the matter. Suggestions include putting a lens cap over Bilal's all-seeing back of the head during teaching hours, or just turning the damn thing off when he's on the NYU campus.


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FROM FAST COMPANY

Coming Soon: Movie Screens That Watch You Back, Measure Your Reactions


Movie theater technology is getting a novel tweak--it'll start watching audiences to see how they react to movies and ads. The silver screen is set to watch you back, and it's all in the cause of market research.

Some theaters have already been watching you for years, but only to make sure you're not recording the show. Cameras embedded in the screen can detect the tell-tale infra-red signature of a digital camera. But that was just the first step. Aralia Systems, a U.K. high-tech security firm, just earned nearly $350,000 in a grant from the University of the West of England to turn those cameras into a system for gauging audience reaction to films and advertising.

We're not talking about a dumb clapometer-style system, either. The intention is to produce rich data that can measure the details of an individual's face. Aralia will leverage 3-D face recognition technology that the university is already developing. When you sit in the audience of a theater with their system, you'll be illuminated with an infra-red beam, and three or more cameras will continually monitor the crowd to create stereoscopic images--just like the 3-D digital cameras that are now launching on the consumer markets.

The system should be able to detect a great deal. It will know the direction your face is pointing in, your expression, whether you're shocked by something, whether you're sitting in a family group or on your own, at what point you get bored, and so on. This is invaluable data for marketers, who can gauge how well their ad messages are getting across. Potentially, they could change the ad's placement in the reel between showings to see if they get a better reaction. And it isn't just the ad reel, of course. Movie studios have been running test screenings for years--they'd love to get a sense of which scenes to cut, without having to go through the fuss of having audiences fill out surveys.


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FROM STL TODAY

'Exterminator' armored truck will watch Illinois neighborhoods


Last year, the dean of the region's chief cops sponsored a "haunted crack house" that used an old grange hall to depict the life of a young drug addict.

Before that, Justus publicized a "drug house of the week," aimed at shaming dealers into leaving town.

On Tuesday, his deputies lifted a plastic tarp to unveil his newest idea: an armored truck to park in problem neighborhoods as a vandal-proof platform to transmit live pictures.

"I thought about a lot of names ... I thought 'The Cockroach' would've probably been appropriate, but we settled on 'The Exterminator,'" Justus told reporters.

The donated and rebuilt armored truck, once used to carry cash, is fitted with cameras, digital recorders and gear to stream live video. Deputies will park it in front of the "dwellings of troublemakers" — for days at a time, if necessary — to reduce nuisance crimes.

"It sends a message," Justus said. "We will not tolerate drug trafficking, littered lawns, loud noise and other neighborhood nuisances." He said the cameras should keep criminals on the run and give residents peace of mind.

Critics say such policing efforts are ineffectual, and just move crime down the road. Justus said the truck will address local problems one at a time. "It's that house down the street. That is their concern in their neighborhood," the longtime sheriff suggested.

Residents can request the truck by contacting the Sheriff's Department online at www.theexterminator.us, or by phoning 618-277-3505.

"I lay in bed at night dreaming this stuff up," Justus joked.

In fact, he said he got the idea from the police in Peoria, Ill., who have used a similar truck, named "The Armadillo," for several years.

"There's an old saying about vaudeville ... if it plays in Peoria, it will play anywhere," Justus said. "I'm here to tell you, it plays well in Peoria."

Peoria Police Chief Steve Settingsgaard, who attended the ceremony, said "The Armadillo" has 'shut down" crime wherever it's been used. "Once we parked it in place, everything shut down and was quiet," he said. "We put it in front of drug houses and in high-crime areas and the ne'er-do-wells disappear from the area for a few days. It is almost too effective in that the video doesn't catch anything because it is such a deterrent."


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