The 2007 Computer and Robot Vision (CRV) just finished. It is an annual conference sponsored by the Canadian Image Processing and Pattern Recognition Society (CIPPRS, which I happen to be the president of, so be aware this is not objective). CRV took place in Montreal combined with AI 2007, Graphics Interface and the Precarn conference. From all accounts the conference combination worked well and there is a desire to hold all four conferences together again next year where the venue will be Windsor, Ontario. Having Precarn in the mix had the conference overall a bit more professional and upscale, and people were nervous about possible increased costs, but it all worked out nicely. Windsor is certain to be the venue for the next AI/GI/CRV, but Precarn still needs to decide if they will join.
Speakers included Michael Black who spoke about Markov Random Fields (MRF's) for image restoration. In addition to showing of some of his own ideas Michael provided a nice overview of the area and discussed methods to avoid explicit computation of the partition function. This material was especially appealing to me since it is related to the research of my former student Abril Torres (Luz-Abril Torres-Mendez) who worked with me on the recovery and restoration of range images using MRF's. Invited speakers included Martial Hebert and Larry Matthies from CMU and JPL respectively, who each also gave very nice talks on image motion analysis and on vision based navigation and scene understanding. I sadly missed most of Larry's talk due to an administrative meeting, but the people who talk to me about it were very enthusiastic, which is no surprise since Mars landing applications are always good and Larry delivers a consistenly great presentation. Martial actually gave 2 different long talks, both of which included a nice restrospective introduction as well as some cool very recent results (some of which were only archieved the week of the conference and have not yet appeared in print).
The one minor downer was an expensive banquet at the Marriott that featured a really absymally tough dry capon (chicken). I rarely focus on food, but this thing was truly memorable.
Other features of the conference were a trade show and an open house at the McGill Research Center for Intelligent Machines (CIM). Both had pretty good attendance and seemed to go over quite well.
(Read more about Abril's work on MRF's here.)
2007
2007
I have installed familiar linux (0.8.4) on an IPAQ 3900, with the Opie user interface.
I messed up the touchscreen calibration and had a very hard time fixing it.
If anybody ever has this problem (and it is reported occasionally on the net), you can get things (approximately)
working using my machine calibration data. Replace the file
called /etc/pointercal with this data:
24271 -110 -1037464 -228 17819 -808152 65536
Maybe this will help somebody, somewhere avoid the hassle I had.
2007
The people at Braintech have developed in interesting software package that provides a simple mechanism for adding vision-based tracking to Microsoft Robotics Studio. Their package is called Volts-IQ runs as a MSRS service. It seems really easy to use and there is "Community Technical Preview," which I think means a free beta download. It seems like a perfect match for MSRS.
As far as I can tell, it is targeted at fairly simple tracking scenarios and places a premium on getting up and running very quickly and easily. It does tolerate some tracking error and occlusion, but it seems to put the emphasis on real-time easy over robustness (which makes sense for many applications).
2007
One of my students has a friend who works at Apple, and who visited recently with their iPhone. They really exist and they seem to work in Canada! They couldn'y say much about it, but it seems to live up to expectations. (I didn't get to play with it myself.)
It's well known that the iPhone uses GSM technology and thus was expected to roam fine on Rogers (the only Canadian GSM carrier). Most people this means Rogers is the only possible Canadian carrier. While a senior executive from Rogers has recently stated that discussions with Apple are still at an early stage, this news implies that truly desperate Canadians can snag an American model and use it safely in Canada.
(Note: this entry is superceded by the announcement of the iPhone, and it's subsequent unlocking and use in Canada. A more recent blog entry is this one).
2007
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) will not be adding red and pink coral to the list of protected species this year. The June 2007 CITES meeting just concluded and despite a proposal to limit the trde in red, pink and other corals which seemed destined to pass, the proposal was overturned at the last minute.
The is more bad news for corals. Reefs are already under immense pressure and the bulk of coral reefs that were around when I was a teenager are either destroyed, being severly pressured or under imminent threat.
Red does not, in fact, actually grow on typical familar reefs. It grows in deep water, and grows very slowly. Because it is rare, there are all kinds of ridiculous stories about how it can be used for everything from medecine to romance, but most is used for ornamental jewelery. Supposed red coral nacklaces are offered for sale very widely and in many countries. In case you are tempted to buy it, note that most red coral that is offered for sale is fake and overpriced, not passing it up is both environmentally and economically sound.
Incidentally, a bid to add protection for the Black Rino also was not successful (see the Zambezi society for a horrible rhino poaching photo and background on the UK Adopt-a-Scout ranger support program where you can help). Some good news: the Japanese and Icelandic governments did not succeed in another sleazy and disgusting attempt to remove whale protections. Thank goodness.
CITES is the biggest international trade agreement, but not the only one. Intenational transport of CITES restricted species, or products of such species, (e.g ivory) is a federal offense in many countries (such as Canada and the USA). Species that are not on the CITES list (such as red coral) may still have restricted trade regulations applied by specific countries.
Want to see the DCMA come to Canada? The Canadian parliment's INDU commitee is suggesting something pretty much like that. A recent report makes a substantial series of recommendations. They have inaccurate and unsubstantiated figures on the impact and size of piracy. One of these is the INDU endorsement of the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty which is distasteful and represents a serious infringement on personal freedom (for example, see Michael Geist's article or the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue forum on copyright on this topic).
If you think this is a bad thing, then you should write to the Canadian politicians, who might actually make a difference. Their web pages provide email addresses.
The proposed prohibition on devices that would permit copy protection circumvention will be difficult to enforce and has an enormous potential to also prohibit numerous legitimate technologies (including legitimate data backup or cross-platform use of legally owned content). There are many professionals who believe, incidentally, that the American DMCA has had a repressive and negative effect on technological innovation and uptake in the USA.
The membership of the committee making these recommendations is here [parl.gc.ca]. The INDU report lists [parl.gc.ca] the "witnesses" in Appendix A: all big media and software businesses.
Send each of these politicians an email message. If you don't use that traditional mechanism for expressing your opinion, then don't complaint about the consequences. If can't write them all, at least write a few, maybe including your own MP (listed by postal code) if you live in Canada.
[ Update: See the more recent article on this subject in a more recent article. ]
