Computers Can Perceive Image Curves Like Artists

View/Recognize Object through Image Features

Humans tend to view and recognize object through image features like the shapes and curves. For instance, we can identify faces, cars, animals and the various other objects through their simple sketch image. However, for the computer, recognizing object or the features of image could be a challenging affair. Precise display of image features is very essential in a wider range of computer vision application, for instance – image registration, object detection and 3D reconstruction.

These images features comprise of contours, edges, corners, regions, lines, curves, interest points and much more. But the research is disjointed in these areas particularly with regards to line and curve discovery. The focus in the thesis lies in discovering, integrating, evaluating and summarizing past research and their contribution in the field of image features.

An understanding on the framework of concept, evaluation, implementation and application for image features has been provided with this thesis. The thesis first proposes a new concept of interest curves which is a concept resulted and extended from interest points. They are significant lines and arcs present in an image, repeated under different image transformation bringing out clear guidelines and structure for future curve and line discovery process and associated application.

Thesis – Evaluation Outline, Distinguishing/Describing Interest Curves

Next, the thesis presents an evaluation outline in distinguishing and describing interest curves and the evaluation framework offers a new model in comparing the performance of the state-of-the-art line and curve sensors beneath image agitations as well as transformations. Lastly it intends an interest curve detector – Distinctive Curves, DICU that unites the discovery of corners, lines, edges and curves.

For upcoming technologies like virtual reality, Google Car or AI brain, image feature would tend to be fundamental components. There has been solid concept missing even though there are hundreds of solutions for the detection of image features already available till now. Bo Li, in his doctoral thesis at the Department of Applied Physics and Electronics at Umea University had developed a discovery concept in computer vision, interest curves. He informed that with this system, the computer can redraw an image utilising curves strokes and recognize objects through these curves.

Concept – New Dimensions of Comprehending Image Features

The concept tends to bring new dimensions of comprehending image features which comprise of regions, points, lines and curves as well as enables these features to be signified within the same hypothetical outline. It enhances the standard for future research related to image features while at the same time offers practical guidance in this field.

 The most essential element in feature extraction, according to Bo Li, is the vigour and his results indicate that his system enables curves and lines to be noticed strongly under different image transformation and disturbances. Curves and lines, in the past had not been popular as points and regions in the scope of computer vision since they lacked adequate strength.

With Li’s new theory as well as algorithms, this will bring about a change. Bo Li explains that curves and lines tend to be naturally useful than points since humans use these shapes in describing the world and his doctorate work portrays several advantages of using curve features in computer vision applications.

Implantable LEDs Could Block Pain Wirelessly

Micro-LED Device – Block Pain with Touch of a Button

At Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, researchers are making discovery by implanting tiny LEDs beneath the skin in order to display particular areas of the body which tend to hurt. The so-called micro-LEDs that seem to be flexible and compatible with the body of the person can be wirelessly activated to block pain with a touch of a button.

The tiny device is said to represent a development in the emerging field of optogenetics that involves connecting light to control cells. The invention seems to be a small flexible light emitting diode or LED which tends to respond to the neural activity of the brain. Researchers had used lab mice to show how the device could manipulate parts of the brain which recognizes the pain.

The procedure comprises of changing the DNA construct of neurons in the brain that enables them to respond to light. The study to develop circuits in the nervous system and the spinal cord came up when Robert Gereau, director of the Pain Centre at Washington University in St. Louis partnered with John Rogers, professor of materials sciences and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Soft/Flexible Device Implanted in Person’s Body

The researchers developed the soft, flexible device which could be implanted into a person’s body and theoretically blocks pain signals from the spinal cord or other parts of the body prior to the signals reaching the brain. Taking the pain into consideration could typically be something which tends to draw the attention to an area needing treatment by just turning it off and ignoring the problem may not be an appropriate solution.Hence this technology has been developed as a last resort system of pain relief while the other treatments have not been much successful.

According to Robert W. Gereau IV besides being a director of the Washington University Pain Centre, is also a Professor of Anesthesiology, states that their ultimate goal was to use this technology to treat pain and provide a switch to turn off the pain signals before they tend to reach the brain. The researchers had implanted the micro-LEDs in mice, whose nerve cells were hereditarily adapted to be sensitive to light.

Understand – Sensory Information Process in Spinal Cord

The indication was that on activating the light on these nerve cells it could trigger pain or block it. For research purpose, the medical LED devices were surgically implanted in mice to have light sensitive proteins on some of their nerve cells. In order to assess if this worked or not, the scientists directed the mice through a maze and when they walked through a selected area in the maze, the wireless device lit up and activated the pain pathways of their nerve cells, causing them some discomfort.

However, when the mouse left the area, the light cut off and instantly the mouse learned to avoid the painful part of the maze. The scientists now know that the micro-LED works and will continue to test ways of understanding better on how sensory information is processed in the spinal cord.

Ultimately they desiredto develop a device which could turn off pain totally in human beings. MIT Technology Review reports that researchers are hoping their findings will someday enable the doctors to control how a patient experiences pain and ease discomfort with the precise flip of a switch.

How IT Outsourcing can Benefit Your Small Business

For any small business to succeed whether it sells a product or service online or in a brick and mortar storefront, it needs up-to-the minute IT services to stay ahead of the game. You may require upgrading of hardware and software as well as online security but don’t have the capital to hire a dedicated IT employee. Companies such as Acora and others focus only on giving large or small businesses IT support. A dedicated IT team can customize its service to suit your business objectives, so you can focus on your sales and operations and not worry about your IT support.

The Main Benefits

The most important benefit of IT outsourcing is it allows the company’s managers to focus on customers and operations without splitting their time taking care of IT problems. This can also be solved by hiring a network administrator, but this means another salary and benefits that a small business may not be able to afford. In order to pay for this, the company may have to pass the extra expense on to customers. When a small business outsources its IT, it has a better chance to competitively price its product or service, and it gets top-level IT service that puts it on par with large enterprises.

Any business big or small can save money by outsourcing its IT operations. It is a good way to control capital outlay, especially for start-ups. This frees capital that the managers can funnel into the company.
Technology changes practically overnight and a professional IT service will be able to implement new technology quickly into your business. It has the facilities and expertise because that is its main focus. Experience is much more valuable to you than qualification. It may take weeks or months for an in-house IT employee to learn about the latest advances, and upgrade your operations. A professional will see the latest advances even before they arrive.

There are always risks involved with any business such as government regulations, financial conditions, markets and competition. IT services will assume and manage much of that risk for you because it has specific industry knowledge. This is especially true for security and compliance issues. It will know how to help you avoid risk in your IT operations.

Services IT Professionals Offer

If you sell products or services online, it’s especially important to have up to date security measures. Here are a few things professionals will do for your business:

• Keep your firewall up to date

• Audit your servers and workstations

• Implement PCI security standards and maintain them

• Implement payment structures such credit and debit cards

When due diligence is enacted on your IT operations by a professional IT service provider, the risks that are associated with maintaining credit card numbers, client data and sensitive competitive information will be minimized. Whenever there is software or hardware upgrades, you’ll get the required malware installed immediately, all the time saving money to focus on production or sales staff who directly drive revenue.

Ear and Tongue Sensors Combine to Understand -Silent Speech

Latest Invention - `Silent Speech’ – Magnetic Tongue Control System

Latest inventions can now recognize `silent speech’ by keeping checks on the tongue and ears. On training it to identify suitable phrases, it can enable people who tend to be disabled or work in loud environment, to control quietly the wearable devices.

This new devices depends in part on a magnetic tongue control system which had been earlier designed to aid people with paralysis to drive a power wheelchair through tongue movements. However, the researchers were worried that the technology which depends on a magnetic tongue piercing or a sensor affixed to the tongue could be too disturbing for some of the users.

The Tongue Drive System – TDS is the work of a team under the guidance of Jeonghee Kim at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, US. The system needs users to pierce their tongue with a barbell shaped device. A professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and technical lead on the wearable computer Google Glass, Thad Starner, had been motivated to attempt ear movements after an appointment with a dentist.

Dentist – Motivated Silent Speech Recognition

The dentist had stuck a finger in Starner’s ear and had asked him to bite down, some quick test for jaw function. As his jaw seemed to move, so also the space in his ears moved. This led him to wonder if he could do silent speech recognition with that experiment.

The subsequent device tends to combine tongue control with earpieces which seems somewhat like headphones and each of it is embedded with a proximity sensor which utilises infrared light to map the changing shape of the ear canal. Various words require various jaw movements, deforming the canal in slightly different ways.

The team had listed 12 phrases which could be essential, for the test, like `I need to use the bathroom’, or `Give me my medicine, please’. People were then recorded, repeating these while wearing the device. With the tongue and ear trackers in, the software could recognize what the wearer was saying, almost 90% of the time. With the use of ear trackers only, the accuracy seemed a bit lower. The researchers expect to build a phrasebook of useful words as well as sentences which could be recognisable from the ear data.

Jaw-emes

A graduate student at Georgia Technology, Abdelkareem Bedri states that they call them `jaw-emes’. Besides this, they have also started looking into other probable uses for the ear data. One experiment with an improved version of the ear trackers had reached 96% accuracy in recognizing simple jaw gestures, like a move from left to right.

These types of gestures would enable the wearer discreetly control the wearable device. Heartbeat monitoring too seems possible and can support the system to verify that it is placed properly in the ears of the wearer.

 Bruce Denby tends to work on silent speech in his lab at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris and states that demonstrating that the technology is `industry ready, could be crucialin bringing the technology to the market. He further added that `the true holy grail of silent speech is continuous speech recognition. However, the potential of recognizing even a limited set of phrases is a tremendous boon already for some disabled individuals.

Google Can Reset 75% of Android Phones Remotely

 

Google Can Reset Passcode of Older Versions of Android

The earlier operating software is at risk, namely codenamed Froyo, Ice Cream Sandwich, Gingerbread, Jelly Bean and KitKat. The older versions of Android devices could have their passcode reset by Google, remotely if the court order compels them to enable the authorities to look at the contents. According to a document by the New York District Attorney, it indicates that the phones and tablets running Android software which were released before Lollipop 5.0 seem to be vulnerable to resetting.

Latest software tend to use full disk encryption which means that Google is unable to comply with requests even if it is compelled to do so. Around 75% of Android devices still tend to use a software version which can be accessed remotely with a court order.

The document has mentioned that for some other types of Android devices, Google can reset the passcode when aided with search warrant as well as order instructing them to support law enforcement in removing data from the device. This procedure can be done remotely by Google and enables forensic examiners to view the contents of a device. The latest Android phones have encryption turned off by default, inspite of having the ability.

Automated System Enabling Complainants File

The process of turning it on differs by model though the same can usually be found in the settings menu somewhere. In the meanwhile, for copyright reasons, Google had mentioned that it receives 1,500 requests each minute for removal of specific results from its search engine. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Google provides an automated system enabling complainants file through an online form.

Every version of the Android operating system tends to have a numerical identifier and a name that has been historically the name of a dessert or candy such as Ice Cream sandwich. Unlike the devices of Apple, Android devices are manufactured by various different manufacturers which are referred to as Original Equipment Manufacturers or OEMs.

Android devices could set up a `pattern unlock’ passcode that is in line connecting at least 4 dots in a 9 dot grid in order to protect the data on their devices. Devices of specific operating systems provide the possibility of locking the device utilising numeric or alphanumeric passcode.

Fingerprint Readers Incorporated in Hardware

Some of the Android devices tend to have fingerprint readers, incorporated in the hardware of the device. However, the fingerprint reader is not assimilated in all Android devices due to the variety of OEMs developed Android devices. Google provide cloud storage in Google Drive as well as other locations and the data could be backed from an Android device, an iPhone, iPad or a computer, to Google’s cloud.

By default, Android devices do not tend to back up to Google cloud storage and hence a user must agree to choose to back up to the cloud where the choice is not a single but a series of choices, one for each kind of data.

Google had opposed the findings of the district attorney. Google’s security lead, Adrian Ludwig, had commented that `Google did not have the ability to facilitate unlocking any device that has been protected with a pin, fingerprint or password irrespective of the device being encrypted or not and for all the versions of Android’.