Gadgetory

I want to start off this show with something that is really a look at what's next it recognizes you Firefly can recognize art you're gonna connect smartphones and tablets to everyday objects even things that don't have any computing or connectivity capabilities themselves barcodes QR codes short links even URLs themselves are all in some ways crutches for computing devices that have cameras yet don't know what they're looking at enter image recognition we haven't just recognized the episode we've recognized the scene if you point the camera at a package of soap well you can get a link to buy that soap on Amazon place ernie into a room and ernie comes to life tag the dog's eyes and nose and then the photos analyzed and uploaded if someone finds your dog face recognition software will match it to the picture on file it responds to your gestures and it listens to your voice now image recognition is of course a close cousin of facial recognition which most of us got very familiar with right after 9/11 when certain major sporting events began using cameras to see who's coming in and figure out their identities but image recognition more broadly doesn't just focus on faces it'll look at just about any object released in the future especially objects in the retail environment and bring you information or abilities to act on that product but humans have been incredibly good at doing image recognition and pattern recognition for millennia so why are we teaching dumb devices to do something that we do supremely well well because the gadget will bring some additional technologies to the table that we don't have first of all they have access to more information than you could ever stick in your head a larger database if you will of possible matches for what they're looking at more than you could ever memorize or whatever want to next up is discrimination a tool that machines can use very well they can tell - very similar things apart in a way that humans often can't if you hear a song on the radio and you want to tell me about it so maybe I can identify it for you what do you hum a few bars that's not gonna help me a lot but a machine can very readily check its database of very similar sounding songs and find the right one then there's automation we've talked a lot on this show about how we're starting to use cameras on devices to map the interior world airports stadiums malls what-have-you to do that with actual human eyes making notes into a database that's too tedious impractical to have devices do it in an automated way is actually quite possible now how do those attributes add up into functions that you'll care about as a user especially in the retail space first of all is product information QR codes shelf tags quickie little URLs any of those things try to get us closer to product information but they still stand between us and that information if you've got a device that can look natively at the product and inform you about it the way that our eyes want to do you're getting much closer then there are hard to search or fuzzy search items try googling a shirt you saw someone wear that you'd like to buy one of I'll wait then there's identification and personalization but this is of the user it's kind of the reverse of looking at the product it's now a device looking at the user of the product or the service to allow them to log in to personalize or even to limit what they're able to access now where image recognition technology makes it into your hands will be interesting the obvious and current darling is in our Mobile's in phones and tablets because they're always with us they're typically always connected and they have very good cameras of course next up look for it propagating in smart glasses those that have cameras of course have most of the attributes of a mobile device but they also have this sort of innate gaze match they're pointed where we're pointed they're very sort of intuitive that way and finally there will be a class of fixed image recognition cameras many of these will be doing the reverse piece identifying the consumer who's regarding the product that could be something like a Kinect technology it could be brick streams live device or it could be cameras already mounted in stores for security taking on a new role of also figuring out who is doing what now image recognition is still at a nascent phase certainly for consumer use we've got a lot more misses than hits in my experience however it's got a huge wide lane of potential to make a lot of product interactions a lot less friction film and that gives it a pretty good chance at being a next big thing