In response to an IEEE article, I previously wrote about the annual fundraising that occurs to supplement fees paid to societies. The same IEEE article praises volunteers that organize conferences, deciding on the technical program and managing the final publication. However, the article does not mention the contribution of peer reviewers as volunteers. As I have already noted in my earlier writings, peer review is an essential aspect of the conference ecosystem.

If your bank charges you a "society admin fee", an "audit fee", "credit card fees", and "conference admin fees", would you stay with the bank?.

I have just read an IEEE article about contributions of volunteers for conference organization. The revenue numbers are staggering. The 900+ conferences generated US $129 million in 2008 for IEEE. The article goes on to say that volunteers decide on the technical theme, venue, program committee members, technical program, publicizing and publishing of conference proceedings.

What is the shelf life of your computer vision application?

There is a plethora of ideas for computer vision applications and plenty of very smart folks are working towards finding the killer application(s) using computer vision technology. However, there might come a day when an alternative approach would replace computer vision as the more ideal implementation. This alternative approach might be better in performance, easier to implement, simpler to install, and most importantly, more cost effective.

You can participate on a currently running public opinion poll on the next great killer application in computer vision. But which application is the real killer application? If you were to ask the community, you would find a wide range of answers ranging from camera phones to automotive, from robotics to surveillance. Perhaps the answer to the question is all of the above, or perhaps none of the above.

As the World Health Organization raise the pandemic alert level, the highest it has been in many years, we are inundated with media coverage of the swine flu and its affects. It is difficult not to think about what we could do in our research capacity in computer vision to aid in the efforts to deter the outbreaks of infectious diseases.

"We see things as we are, not as they are" – Leo Rasten

Human beings have a good ability to focus on the task at hand. This is a learnt behavior that is developed since childhood. As the tasks become more complex, we learn to focus to master the new ability and to finish a new task. At the same time, we humans have a tendency to be self absorbed when we focus on our work. We would overlook overtly simple patterns that might accompany the new complex task.

"I believe that in about fifty years' time it will be possible to programme computers to make them play the imitation game so well that an average interrogator will not have more than 70 per cent chance of making the right identification after five minutes of questioning". Alan Turing, 'Computing Machinery and Intelligence', Mind (1950), 442

A Computer Vision Turing Test

Computer vision involves the analyses of images and videos in order to understand the environment. It brings an element of artificial intelligence (AI) as it encompasses fields of study from computer science, mathematics, and engineering, among many others. I believe it would be interesting therefore to consider a Computer Vision Turing Test in which scene analysis results by a computer vision system would be indistinguishable from an analysis by a human.

The Turing test has been proposed for more than 50 years and since then there has since a great level of development in the modeling and simulation of perceptual processes. However, an AI system that passes the Turing test with flying colors remains an illusive goal. This is despite the huge shift in computing horsepower and storage.

Continued from the previous post

Extend the review process beyond conferences

In a crowdsourcing approach to paper reviews, we would need a proper platform in place. The key element of such a platform is a method to have open calls for paper reviews, such that reviews are extended to the lifetime of the community’s interest in the subject rather than a conference's annual call-for-papers. That is, interest in any submitted paper would peak during the annual conference period, and then it would quickly fade away. The review process is limited only to the submission period, with no other critique afterwards. This annual dance does not lend itself well to the longer term aspect of doing good research.

The new pool of cheap labor: everyday people using their spare cycles to create content, solve problems, even do corporate R & D. – Jeff Howe, "The Rise of Crowdsourcing"

Harnessing the Power of Crowdsourcing

Even though we are now able to harness crowdsourcing efforts for the Web 2.0, we are still using an antiquated method to review research papers. The peer review process is a cornerstone of scholarship, and it is something I’ve written about as being indispensible part to maintain quality papers. However, we should consider new approaches, aligned with today’s technology and mindset, for peer review of research.

What is your approach in looking for application areas for computer vision? There is certainly the desire to work in areas that are meaningful and even patriotic. You might even explore other fields that are close to your heart. But, with the current economic slowdown, you might want to follow the money when you explore new vision applications.