Monday, August 26, 2013: Photos and videos taken by modern DSLRs are nothing close to lightweight files. They quickly add up to gigabytes of data which would pose problem for research. However, engineers at the iniLabs, a Swiss company have come out with a technology that borrows the image capturing mechanics from the way a human retina functions. Aptly called the Dynamic Vision Sensor, the resulting technology is the prominent aspect of this super powerful and ultrafast camera.
The human retina works not by actually capturing / recording all the things that come to our view but by spotting the change in movements. This way the neurons can get rid of tons of unnecessary data from the surrounding making processing sharper and fast. The DVS technology works the same way and records only motion of the subjects. The new camera is able to record hours of non-stop video consuming a very little amount of power and using just a few megabytes for storage of the same. However, the biological connection in the new camera goes beyond replicating the human retina. The chips that power DVS are borrowed from IBMs brain-inspired chip line and consist of the TrueNorth computer architecture.
According to the researchers, it makes a lot of sense to support one human like process with another. Nabil Imam, a Cornell computer scientist says that they have been able to capture brain features at a higher level and the central idea to the new camera is close to how neuroscientists feel that the brain works
However, the DVS is even better than the human counterpart and spots movements instantaneously. It could be as well integrated into robotic goalie.
