AI Inspiration #15: Soundwave AR Tattoos; AI-Enabled TVs; Olympics Facial Recognition
Here’s everything that’s new in artificial intelligence and computer vision, with a little tech pop culture to make the medicine go down. Our logic is undeniable.
“Where’s the virtual beef?”
How Watching TV Could Make You Eat More Burgers
New Year’s resolutions may not stand a chance against recently installed video displays outside of some McDonald’s, Dylan’s Candy Bar shops and Westville restaurant locations. Created by Outernets, the displays feature cameras that use computer vision to assess anonymous demographic information such as age and gender of the people in front of the screens, then serves up relevant ads for, say, cheeseburgers or bon-bons. If your New Year’s resolution includes working harder, then the displays may help since they’re also at some WeWork locations, where an ad for, say, faster new laptops, may boost your productivity.
AR Soundwave Tattoos Immortalize Your Loved Ones
The recently released Skin Motion augmented reality app lets you convert a recording into a soundwave tattoo, which can then be played anytime you point your iPhone or Android phone at it. Since being released last month, the app is getting a lot of attention, prompting one Chicago teen to memorialize her late grandmother in augmented ink form.
LG Smart TVs Get Artificially Intelligent
Just in time for CES 2018, LG announced its ThinQ AI plan that sticks AI capabilities into TVs, refrigerators, robovacs and more. First up is an improved, deep learning-enabled voice recognition system, both proprietary and Google Assistant-enabled, for the Korean consumer electronics giant’s new line of TVs and speakers. Cameras and sensors with computer vision capability are planned, too, which means you can finally get rid of that unsightly Xbox Kinect sensor on top of your television.
Using Computer Vision to Improve Your Golf and Baseball Swings
Optimizing your baseball or golf swing with technology is no longer the sole purview of professional teams. Blast Vision, a new iOS app, uses computer vision to capture and analyze clips and videos of your swings, then provides tips and overlays graphic visualizations onto the replays with metrics such as ball speed, launch angle and approximate carry distance. The rest, of course, is practice, practice, practice.
Google Glasses With More Smarts
Already a cool, useful and unobtrusive game changer for the visually challenged, the OrCam MyEye made headlines in 2015 for its ability to turn ordinary specs into Google Lens-like augmented reality glasses that used computer vision to read text and identify objects and people in view. Launching at CES, the MyEye 2.0 brings up-to-date features and machine learning via built-in WiFi.
Tokyo’s Olympic Speed Scanning Via Facial Recognition
Japan’s NEC Corporation is providing facial recognition technology to speed up screening for the expected 400,000 athletes, officials and journalists at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic games. At entrance points for events and venues, attendees’ faces will be scanned and checked against the ID images they submitted for registration. Spectators, however, will still be screened the old-fashioned way — by humans and bag scanners — so leave the backpacks at home.
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