For more technology stories, visit newscientist.com/technology8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 21Let me guess... it’s a chair,
right? Talk about déjà vu
ALWAYS seeing the world with
fresh eyes can make it hard to
find your way around. Giving
computers the ability to recognise
objects as they scan a new
environment will let them
navigate much more quickly and
understand what they are seeing.
Renato Salas-Moreno at
Imperial College London and
colleagues have added object
recognition to a computer vision
technique called simultaneous
location and mapping (SLAM).
A SLAM-enabled computer has
a camera to orient itself in new
surroundings as it maps them.
SLAM builds up a picture of the
world out of points and lines and
contours. In an office, say, chairs
and desks would emerge from
the room like hills and valleys
in a landscape. “The world is
meaningless since every point in
the map is the same,” says Salas-
Moreno. “It doesn’t know if it is
looking at a television or the wall.”
But in the new system, called
SLAM++, the computer constantly
tries to match the points and lines
it sees to objects in its database.
As soon as it finds a shape it can
identify – often after seeing only
a part of it – that area of the map
can be filled in. Currently, the
database is prepared by hand,but the next version will allow the
system to add new objects itself
as it encounters them. “It’s similar
to how a child learns about the
world,” says Salas-Moreno.
The database also lists the
properties of the stored objects.
So when the computer recognises
a chair, it will know what they are
used for, how much they typically
weigh, and which way up they go.
This knowledge will help digital
avatars interact with the real
world in augmented reality
applications, for example. Thework will be presented at the
Computer Vision and Pattern
Recognition conference in
Portland, Oregon, this month.
Stefan Hinterstoisser at the
Technical University in Munich,
Germany, is impressed. “It’s a very
significant improvement over
the state of the art,” he says. He
thinks it could have a big impact
not only on robotics, but also on
games and films – CGI characters
would be able to interact with the
world more naturally, for example.
Douglas Heaven n- Work the room one step at a time–
One Per CenT
rOBerY STOLArIK/new YOrK TImeS/redux/eYevIneBump! There’s a pothole...
Cars and trucks could one day be used to help scout for
potholes, say engineers at the M. S. Ramaiah Institute of
Technology in Bangalore, India. Their design calls for vehicle
shock absorbers to be fitted with wireless pressure sensors
that can beam data on pothole size to a central server and to
other vehicles nearby. Councils will then be able to prioritise
repairs and satnavs could plot routes to avoid potholes.“It’s a cross between a Concorde,
a railgun and an air hockey table”Elon Musk' s e n i g m a t i c a n s w e r a t t h e A l l T h i n g s D i g i t a l
c o n f e r e n c e i n C a l i f o r n i a l a s t w e e k w h e n a s ke d a b o u t h i s
high-speed Hyperloop transport system, which might one
d a y f e r r y p e o p l e b e t w e e n L o s A n g e l e s a n d S a n Fr a n c i s c oAncient Protestant network unearthed
The same analysis used to understand digital social
networks has unearthed a secret from the 16th century.
Ruth Ahnert of Queen Mary, University of London, analysed
letters written by Protestant martyrs in England persecuted
under the Catholic reign of Mary I – aka “Bloody Mary”. By
connecting senders and recipients, as well as places, people
and events mentioned in the letters, Ahnert found a hidden
network of Protestants who “provided monetary, moral and
logistical support to the martyrs”, but never made it into the
pages of history. She will present the work next week at a
network science conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.Apple’s cool battery patent
Graphene could soon be helping Apple’s iPhones and iPads
pack more power. The company has filed a US patent
application (2013/0136966) to use the one-atom thick
sheets of carbon to disperse heat from the lithium batteries
in its mobile devices. Replacing existing 30-micrometre-
thick graphite heat sinks with graphene could open up space
for a bigger, longer-lasting battery, says inventor Ramesh
Bhardwaj of Fremont, California.“ Computers that recognise
and add new objects to
their database learn in
a similar way to a child”130608_N_TechSpread.indd 21 4/6/13 10:56:06