Now let us look at some of these intriguing questions that just might catch your fancy:

• What if you could hold your smartphone to the sky and see how the weather will change during the day?
• What if your phone could recognize trams passing by and tell you whether you could use it to go back home and/or when the next one is coming?
• What if you could see which of the Burj-Khalifa – or any other hotel –rooms that are available, and their price, only by taking a picture of the building itself?
• What if you could see when a museum is open and what are its current exhibitions and opening hours?

Thanks to video analytics, augmented reality is on the way to become part of our habits. But what is it? Augmented reality is a type of virtual reality that aims to duplicate the world's environment in a computer. An augmented reality system generates a composite view for the user that is the combination of the real scene viewed by the user and a virtual scene generated by the computer that augments the scene with additional information. The virtual scene generated by the computer is designed to enhance the user's sensory perception of the virtual world they are seeing or interacting with.

Since over a year now, we have been hearing a lot about this innovative technology and more particularly about the google glass and how it will revolutionize the way we see and interact with our surroundings. Everyday we can witness new applications that are bringing us closer to this this revolution.

With this idea in mind, and a constant development in the field of augmented reality has led to birth of applications like Layar and Blippar, which focuses on apps that are developed for smartphones, giving consumers a more interactive look into the world AR.

I'm sure you all aware of the Google glasses as mentioned before. But for augmented reality, it is just the tip of the iceberg for the future it holds for this technology.

A lot of retailers have already leveraged on this concept of AR incorporating into their sales and marketing operations, allowing consumers to take full advantage in helping them choose their product. Augmented reality is changing the way of how consumers can interact and shop at the same time. An example of this is illustrated in the IKEA 2013 catalogue video below:

The Nespresso Case:
Another similar example would be in the case of Nespresso machines.The concept is quite simple, the customer had to print a qr code, put it on a desired location, download the Nespresso app that would use the smartphone camera to reproduce the machine on the screen. The customer could then change color to check which one would better fit its environment.
This allows the potential customers to picture how well the Nespresso machines would fit their homes.

The Automotive Case:
HUD or Head-Up-Display is the use of any transparent display that displays information data without users' requiring to look away from their usual point of view. BMW was the first car manufacturer to adopt this technology into their commercial vehicles, where by the information on speed and other vehicle information was displayed on the bottom of the windscreen allowing the drivers to a more efficient and safer driving experience. It makes the drivers more aware of the car comportment and soon will be able to inform him from potential dangers using cameras at the back of the car reported on the windscreen. The cameras, together with infra-red light, will be able to analyze potential threat and communicate them to the driver, this latter won't even have to change its field of vision and will be able to concentrate only on what is in front of him!

Links:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57588128-76/the-next-big-thing-in-tech-augmented-reality/
http://mashable.com/2012/12/19/augmented-reality-city/
http://www.koloss.se/project/nespresso-augmented-reality
http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/technology/technology_guide/articles/head_up_display.html

Video Analytics Is A Hole-In-One!

The perfect swing through Video Analytics

„Golf is more than a sport, marriages which were divorced, relationships, which were ended, careers which were lost because people are so keen to learn this complex movement in golf“ says Prof. Dr. Martin Rohr, passionate Golfer himself .

It is widely known that golf is a complicated game and swinging a golf club correctly is not a natural thing to do. The technique behind timing a golf shot has to be taught and has to be practiced many times before a player can achieve the perfect swing.

Video analytics helped Prof. Dr. Martin Rohr, after playing Golf for years to improve his swing movement substantially and to consequently improve his Handicap. Additionally, through the help of video analysis Prof. Dr. Rohr was experiencing a relief from his chronic back pain. By being able to closely monitor his body movements and having a trained golf pro and a physician revise the captured material, he was able to take efforts to help relieve the pain in his lumbar spine that almost made him quit his most beloved sport.

We were able to get a testimonial from Prof. Dr. Rohr about his experience in Golf with Video Analytics.

please click here to see the interview

Prof. Dr. Martin Rohr being filmed at his Golf practise

The coach Richard Foster uses detailled video analysis on each of the students. The main goal is to achieve an improvement of the playing potential. He used software called GASP Lab Golf Analysis Software.

Golf Video Analysis Software

He points out, it is crucially important to receive immediate feedback. After a lesson the player has learned how to improve addressing the ball, and having perfected this he feels his game should now improve but then he momentarily forgets the best way to control the speed of the club head during the downswing and his game suffers. Without the immediate feedback one might improve 90% the first, 70% the next time practicing but eventually fall back into same old routine. Only by receiveing constant and immediate feedback the improvement performance can be maximized.

Golf student being analysed via Video Analysis

On the market so far are so called Golf Analysis Apps that help to connect coaches and athletes around the world. These apps allow you to record and analyze videos using slow motion, drawing and comparison tools, which can then be shared to anyone in the world. You can compare videos side by side with professional athletes, watch instructional and drill videos from coaches and browse videos from other golfers in the app community.

Another new technology for professionals is called „Monitors Track Man“. This application uses doppler radar technology that has been widely used in military applications to track missiles and projectiles since the 1960s. The app has a radar unit that tracks the trajectory of a golf ball from launch to landing and has the ability to measure the full ball flight, which is essential. The golf radar can give a precise picture of the club during ball impact.

Applying „Video Analytics“ and creating algorithms that would automatically assess and analyze the player’s performance would substancially support and in some occaisons substitute  the coach and allow precise feedback right away. Furthermore many issues that are not capturable at „first sight“ can be evaluated; such as, how the motion is affecting our body and how we develop a tecnique designed for our specific needs and health issues.

That health injuries are considered while playing is a great opportunity when addressing physically challenged people – no matter to what extent. Specifically, all parts of the body would be measured during the swing and then analyzed using video analytics. This new trend and opportunity is comparable with technologies applied in other sports industries, for example running or cycling:  in running the heart rate monitor and in professional cycling the motion maesurement system that helps to practice efficiently in order to improve performance.

This opens doors to new business opportunities for many professional golf trainers. Golf is a serious business, players are extremely passionate and are have a high willingness to pay, which has great revenue potential for video analytics. 

References:

http://www.richard-foster.com/

http://www.sloansportsconference.com/?p=630

http://www.ubersense.com/learn_more

http://trackmangolf.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN4wmwQojhQ

Prof. Dr. Martin Rohr

Frederike Rohr

Innovative Technologies: Can Flies Simply Revolutionize Warfares ??!

Video Analytics in a tiny Fly

Can you imagine a 15 cm insect-like aircraft that would be able to spy, record, transmit live visual information, and eventually KILL TARGETS??!!

Yes!  I found out when surfing www.timeline.net that MicroAerial Vehicles (MAV) " an innovative technology of tiny unmanned vehicles to do the previously mentioned tasks- while relying significantly on our blog topic Video Analytics.

MAV have been recently getting their inspiration from flying insects or birds. Attempting  vigorously to mimic their exact behaviour and capabilities. Which means those tiny aircrafts are using flapping wings to hover around freely in any direction possible. Also, those aircrafts don’t just have eyes… They’ve got a multitude of sensors that would allow them to detect gyroscopes, wind, and their entire surrounding. 

Check out the video below to have a clearer visualisation

MAV can be applied and provide benefits in a variety of arrays, such as Public Safety, wildlife and Environmental surveillance, infrastructure Management, Scientific Research (www.avinc.com). Yet in this blog we will focus on their military applications as they can be a major GAMECHANGER!

How MAV use video analytics?

These tiny flies are equipped with a GPS, minuscule camera, recorders, a modem and many more. Wondering why?

Well according to Air force that are currently developing a technological outbreak for the U.S Military “Data will be communicated among the MAVs to enable real time, reliable decision-making and to provide an advanced overall picture for other platforms or operators'.

The video posted below is a beta demonstration of the Flapping Wing Micro Air Vehicle have a look and see how it works.

Business Intelligence

 “To Hover, Stalk, and Even Kill target” according to an article posted in the DailyMail  .

Those technological flies can work in groups to provide detailed battlefield surveillance, reaching locations that were seemed inaccessible before.

Another unique Video Analytic feature is that those flies navigate by “sight” provided from the sensors rather than GPS. Advantages? The Enemy cannot jam the network by any means.

Group Masacre in Syria

You can also think of them as tiny spying agents providing the government with Intel on their enemies’ hideouts and strategies. It might be of great help such as speeding up the revolutionary war in Syria.

Those MAV can even fly anywhere searching for victims, spotting bombs that harm civilians and infiltrating terrorist cells. Keeping the example of Syria in mind with a death toll of 115,000 people in 3 years, imagine how many of those lives could have been saved with just those tiny FLIES.

Risk and Challenges:

We need to keep in mind though that there’s a major other side of the coin. Especially if this innovative technology was placed in wrong hands. Those risk and challenges can be majorly related to privacy, battery difficulty and assassination.

Privacy is self-explanatory; we would be so easily spied at like never before. Also, inserting a battery in such a small object is a major challenge. However, thankfully to development in nanotechnology this can be solved in the near future. Another solution viewed in the video is the ability of the MAV to draw power from electrical wire (or any electrical source provider).

Answering our blog post title “Can FLIES simply revolutionize Warfares ??!”

In our opinion and based on the video posted … Definitely YES. Especially if those MAV get furtherly developed with the ability to assassin selected targets. Piercing the human skin with a tiny needle without even realizing!!

Feel free to let us know what you think of MAVs?

http://www.futuretimeline.net/subject/military-war.htm

http://www.avinc.com/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2281403/U-S-Air-Force-developing-terrifying-swarms-tiny-unmanned-drones-hover-crawl-kill-targets.html