Facebook just released an AI software that enables programmers to develop applications to enhance “computer vision”, absolutely free.
With technology advancing all the way up to now having driverless cars, the technology for vision is growing by leaps and bounds. People with vision impairments are now able to see light, while computers are able to detect and sense objects from afar, well enough to even interact with them.
The advancement in visual recognition technology helps visually challenged people in recognising the content of images without external help.
Now thanks to Facebook, the power of such software has now been open-sourced, enabling programmers to take full advantage of it and develop custom software for absolutely any application. The company has managed to come up with the technology to recognize the boundaries in a photo – a task known as segmentation, making it possible for independent developers to configure and modify it to their own ends.
The technology will help programmers to code and to create software that supports visual technology, that could be useful for drones, airplanes, cars, robotics, medical equipment and other fields for safety and vision that are limited only by one’s imagination.
“It’s our hope that others will be able to work with us to improve our tools and technologies. Open collaboration helps foster innovation for future designs, putting us all one step closer to building complex AI systems that bring this kind of innovation to our users,” says Piotr Dollar, who is a research scientist with Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research.
It isn’t just a coincidence that big tech giants such as Google and Facebook are releasing their own developed tools and software for free for the public. Artificial Intelligence is becoming increasingly prominent in the tech world and building computer systems which can adapt and learn on their own has become the norm for newer technological inventions. According to Forrester Research, companies spend billions in just AI alone.
Even Zuckerberg has caught the AI bug, trying to teach himself to code his own AI – much like Iron Man’s J.A.R.V.I.S. for controlling his home and office.
Facebook once demonstrated its vision for enabling computer technology to describe an image to someone who is visually impaired. So when someone who can’t see simply glides their fingers across the image, the system will describe to them what they are ‘seeing’ and enable them to experience interaction with images and objects just like regular people can.
It’s an interesting time for the tech world right now, and pioneering innovations are just around the corner. And with the great tech giants making their most widely appreciated technology open-source, that can only mean more power to the people.
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