MIT Research Amplifies Invisible Detail In Video

An anonymous reader writes "MIT researchers have invented an algorithm which is able to amplify motion in video that is invisible to the naked eye — such as the motion of blood pulsing through a person's face, or the breathing of an infant. The algorithm — which was invented almost by accident — could find applications in safety, medicine, surveillance, and other areas. 'The system is somewhat akin to the equalizer in a stereo sound system, which boosts some frequencies and cuts others, except that the pertinent frequency is the frequency of color changes in a sequence of video frames, not the frequency of an audio signal. The prototype of the software allows the user to specify the frequency range of interest and the degree of amplification. The software works in real time and displays both the original video and the altered version of the video, with changes magnified.'"

Re:Obvious application

[BitterOak]

Privacy-violating nudity scans.

We already have technology for that: Backscatter X-ray and millimeter wave scanners. You can find them in most major airports.

Everything

[Sparticus789]

Now every recording device has the potential to become a lie detector.

Cool for Interviewers, Card Players

[mooboy]

For employers, or even police: you could easily detect emotional flushes in someone's face when asked certain questions, i.e., a lie detector of sorts. Also, think poker players with this software built into their "Google Glasses".

Old

[DarwinSurvivor]

Good lord, hack-a-day featured this over 2 1/2 weeks ago [hackaday.com]. In fact, there's already a bloody iPhone app [apple.com]!

Re:Oh fuck no!

[wonkey_monkey]

Yes, clearly the demonstrated ability to remotely monitor a sleeping baby's pulse and breathing will have no practical use.

adding its own bias based on naive attribution of moving areas to distinct objects? Then a human won't see important details behind things that software deemed worthy of emphasizing

This isn't AI. It's actually fairly simple image processing. It has no bias or sense or worth. Yes, it can be tuned - by a human operator who will most likely know what they want to have their attention drawn to. How important are a few pixels in the background behind a barely breathing body when you're searching for a hypothermia victim?

If the concerns you raise had any impact on a particular scenario, the operator can just use their own eyes or switch off the processing.

Re:Old

[bill_mcgonigle]

I'm unclear - are you suggesting that Slashdotters should all be reading Hack-A-Day, know the Apple App Store inside and out, or that the information is time-sensitive enough to not be worth posting today?

Re:Obvious application

[interkin3tic]

I've found that cynical comments in general get modded higher than more optimistic ones. The assumption seems to be made that if you're saying something bad about something, you know what you're talking about and appear wise. Someone praising something on the other hand, that's either a shill or a naive person. I guess pessimism is contagious.

Uh, and that's dumb and we're probably all going to die somehow as a direct result of that pessimism...