Mar-05-13
A program able to make visible the motions imperceptible to the naked eye can monitor a baby’s breathing or detect loose bolts in machinery.
Developed by a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the program was originally intended to monitor neonatal infants without the need for physical contact. The system works by focusing on a single pixel frame-by-frame in a video to identify subtle changes in color or motion, then amplifies the shift up to 100 times. In one example of the technology, a construction site crane appears to be completely still. However, running the video through the program shows the crane swaying a bit in the wind—a potential hazard.
“Once we amplify these small motions, there’s like a whole new world you can look at,” computer scientist William Freeman reported to the New York Times. The team is also working on a smartphone app of the program.
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