Cars driving by you

Cameras capable by themselves to recognize a face in a crowd or a wizard follow the car driving to avoid abuses are just a few of the technological challenges of which 1,500 technologists are debating these days at the International Conference on Computer Vision .

During the edition number 13 of this scientific meeting, considered one of the most important in this branch of artificial intelligence called , to be held in Barcelona until next Sunday, is going to present some of the latest and most prominent experiences image processing and interpretation.

'This is an area that currently is having a huge spectrum of action , with many commercial applications at all levels ", explained Alberto Sanfeliu, director of the Institute of Robotics and Industrial Informatics ( IRI ), organizer of the event along at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, the UAB and the Computer Vision Center .

Computer vision or machine vision computer systems studies for information and try to interpret digital images.

The areas in which we are already working within this area are numerous, among them the recognition and identification of faces that have immediate application in robotics, as well as its use for security and surveillance devices .

Sanfeliu noted that the possibility of this recognition and face tracking is essential for improving the performance of some tasks such as controlling the flow of people in areas like busy airports or other large venues .

Among the 1,500 researchers present in Barcelona there are representatives of some multinational companies are betting that most computer vision, including Google, Microsoft and Toyota.

IRI director explained that the car companies take time to analyze how to apply this computer-vision to improve driving safety and, for example, that cars can have security vision devices, an aide in the driving to detect a pedestrian crossing in front of him calculate the trajectory and stop the vehicle if necessary to avoid hitting him.

But the possibilities do not end there, other points are also conducting research is the detection of faces in digital cameras , monitoring and analysis of players played in sports broadcasting or recognition biometric access control systems .

Soon there will be widespread digital cameras we carry with our smart mobile devices provide us with even more life.

This can make purchases photographing products in a catalog or real-time information of those objects that approaches the camera, but may also put people ahead of us.

In fact, explains Sanfeliu browsers are already able to recognize pictures in which it appears, for example, a particular animal, and can perform a search among the millions of pictures from a file.