VMX: Teach your computer to see without leaving the browser, my Kickstarter project

I’ve spent the last 12 years of my life learning how machines think, and now is time to give a little something back.  I’m not just talking about using computers, nor writing ordinary computer programs.  I’m talking about Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Computer Vision.  Throughout these 12 years, I’ve witnessed how engineers and scientists pursue these problems, at three great universities: RPI, CMU, and MIT.  I’ve been to 11 research conferences, given many talks, wrote and co-wrote many papers, helped teach a few computer vision courses, helped run a few innovation workshops centered around computer vision, and released some open-source computer vision code.

But now, in 2014, most people still struggle with understanding what computer vision is all about and how to get computer vision tools up and running.  I’ve decided that a traditional career in Academia would allow me to motivate no more than a few classrooms of students per year.  A rough estimate of 100 students per year across a 30 year career is a mere 30,000 students.  What about everybody else?  One could argue that some of these students would become educators themselves and the wonderful art of computer vision would reach beyond 30,000.  But I can’t wait.  I don’t want to wait.  Computer vision is too awesome.  I’m too excited.  It's time for everybody to feel this excitement.

So I decided to do something crazy.  Something I wanted to do for a long time, but only recently realized that it would not be possible to do inside the confines of a University.  I recruited the craziest and most bad-ass developer I’ve ever encountered and decided to do the following: convert advanced computer vision technology into a product form that would be so easy to use, a kid without any programming knowledge could train his own object detectors.

I’ve been working non-stop with my colleague and cofounder at our new company, vision.ai, to bring you the following Kickstarter campaign:

VMX Project: Computer Vision for Everyone

What if your computer was just a little bit smarter? What if it could understand what is going on in its surroundings merely by looking at the world through a camera? Such technology could be used to make games more engaging, our interactions with computers more seamless, and allow computers to automate many of our daily chores and responsibilities. We believe that new technology shouldn’t be about advanced knobs, long manuals, or require domain expertise. 

The VMX project was designed to bring cutting-edge computer vision technology to a very broad audience: hobbyists, researchers, artists, students, roboticists, engineers, and entrepreneurs. Not only will we educate you about potential uses of computer vision with our very own open-source vision apps, but the VMX project will give you all the tools you need to bring your own creative computer vision projects to life.

VMX gives individuals all they need to effortlessly build their very own computer vision applications. Our technology is built on top of 10+ years of research experience acquired from CMU, MIT, and Google. By leaving the hard stuff to us, you will be able to focus on creative uses of computer vision without the headaches of mastering machine learning algorithms or managing expensive computations. You won’t need to be a C++ guru or know anything about statistical machine learning algorithms to start using laboratory-grade computer vision tools for your own creative uses.

In order to make the barrier-of-entry to computer vision as low as possible, we built VMX directly in the browser and made sure that it requires no extra hardware. All you need is a laptop with a webcam and a internet connection. Because browsers such as Chrome and Firefox can read video directly from a webcam, you most likely have all of the required software and hardware. The only thing missing is VMX.

We're truly excited about what is going happen next, but we need your help!  Please spread the word, and if you're even mildly excited about computer vision, consider supporting this project.

Thanks Everyone!
Tomasz, @quantombone, author of tombone's computer vision blog

P.S. I'm not telling you what VMX stands for...

What my mother taught me about computer vision

“Wake up, Tomek.  Pack your bags.  We’re moving to America.” 

These were the words my mother whispered into my ear as she roused me from a deep sleep.  There was no alarm clock and no preparation (at least not on my behalf). I was eight years old, and it was a typical January morning in Poland.  It was 1992, and beside a brief venture into Czechoslovakia a few years earlier, I had never left Poland before.

I can still remember those words like they were uttered yesterday.  I remember both the comfort of a child being woken up by the reassuring words of one’s mother as well as the excitement of what those words meant.  It was a matter of hours until I would experience my first international flight, my first multi-lane highway, my first supermarket, and get my first dose of American television.

What I learned from my mother is that sometimes, you just have to pack your bags and go.  That is the lesson my mother taught me, and it wasn’t delivered in the form of a university lecture.  It was an action.  An action that would be the single most influential event in my life.  Moving to the Land of Opportunity from Poland wasn’t something you could not be excited about.

There is a certain kind of excitement that occurs when you make such a bold move in your life.  It requires a certain kind of courage, a certain kind of entrepreneurial spirit.  A certain vision for the future and a certain willingness to take a calculated risk.  A vision that might be filled with uncertainty, but when the uncertainty is drowned by hope, any residual fear just melts away.

My mother never taught me anything about quantum mechanics.  She never provided me with extra tutors hat would one day help me get into a good college, no guidance on how to get into a great PhD program, no etiquette lessons on how to become a respected scientist, etc.  But she gave me the courage and confidence to know that if you want something in life and you have the willingness to pursue it, you can get it. The courage that my mother's actions instilled in me have been more influential in my personal development than any single formal source of knowledge so far.  Thanks mom.

Computer vision is all about the future.  It is all about risks.  It requires a certain entrepreneurial spirit that cannot be attained within the comfy confines of the ivory tower.  I see a world where the way we interact with machines is drastically different than today.  I see a future where we are no longer slaves to our smartphones, where automation will allow us to embrace our human side.  A future where technology will allow us to be free from the worries and stresses which saturate contemporary life.  Computer vision is the interface of the future.  It will allow for both machines to make sense of the world around them, and for us to interact with these machines in a much more intuitive way.

But this sort of change cannot happen without a change in attitude.  As of December 2013, computer vision is simply too academic.  Too much mathematics simply for the sake of mathematics.  Too much emphasis on advancing the state-of-the-art by writing esoteric papers and competing on silly benchmarks.  As a community we have made tremendous advancements, but we have to take more risks.  We have to let go of our egos, and stop worrying about our individual resumes.

I no longer believe that the sort of change I want to see in the world is going to happen by itself.  I want computer vision to revolutionize the way we interact with computers.  I believe in Computer Vision the same way I believed (and still do) about America. Computer vision is the technology of the future, it is the technology of opportunity.  But this cannot happen as long as I continue to portray myself as solely an academic figure.  I know that the way I’m approaching life now is much riskier than getting a traditional job/career in the sciences.  It’s strange to admit that my last day at MIT has been much more exciting for me than my first day at MIT.  I am excited.  My fledgling team is excited.  After our product launch, we’re hoping you will participate in our excitement.  I think the fun times are only beginning. The only limits we have are the ones we impose upon ourselves. 

“Wake up computer vision.  Pack your bags.  You’re moving into everyone’s home.” 

vampiric professors vs. industry-leading werewolves

"Vampires need blood from human donors. Professors need publications, which they extract from their grad students." - Peter Tu

Photo courtesy of Werewolves.com

I wanted to share with everybody a short article by Peter Tu of GE Research (and a Computer Vision hacker) in which he compares Professors to Vampires and Industry Researchers to Werewolves.  If you are in the mood for a witty and insightful read, check this out:

Computer Vision and the Supernatural by Peter Tu