Tuesday, May 3rd, 2005, 6:31 am
Computers Learn Vision
It has been exactly one month since I started taking 20 photos a day. Although this commitment barely maintains an element of joy, it persists and I would love to see how far it can go. Why am I collecting all of this data? Being in the field of computer vision (my daytime occupation), I estimate that within a few decades we will be able to index visual data and extract rich information from it, including information about one’s daily life.
A computer will have a reliable understanding of image contents — understanding that surpasses the human eye and mind. Want a photo that which a Labrador drinking water from a fountain on a sunny day? Want a descriptive verbal interpretation of a given distorted image? This will probably be practical in the distant future. It is a machine learning/pattern recognition task taken to extremity.

The Maths Tower on campus (undergoing demolition)