Public cameras provide valuable insights on pandemic, consumers
Technology similar to massive search engines used to scour the web may soon be used to provide new insights into consumer behavior and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on economies across the world. The technology also may be a useful tool for reducing misinformation in news media.
Purdue University innovators have created several patented technologies that they combined into a computer system to acquire and analyze real-time visual data from millions of globally distributed network cameras. The innovators define network cameras as those connected to the Internet and continuously capturing data.
“We know there are millions of these cameras around the world and we wanted to create ways to better use them for research and business purposes,” said Yung-Hsiang Lu, a professor of electrical and computer engineering in Purdue’s College of Engineering. “Our systems allow users to pull real-time information and analyze the data to produce actionable results. A user can see what is happening at this moment in different parts of the world.”
The Purdue team’s system automatically discovers thousands of network cameras in public spaces. It is possible to create a computer program that saves image data and downloads videos about every 10 minutes, and the data recorded from these cameras can be sent to cloud data centers for processing.
“This technology has such a wide range of applications, from malls using camera data to understand their consumers to news organizations being able to use network cameras to validate facts without risking the lives of journalists being sent to dangerous areas,” Lu said. “Our systems also provide important information for the pandemic. They can be used to observe behavior, such as the reactions around the world once vaccines are administered.”
Lu said the camera data also provides valuable insights into economies around the world, such as looking at the videos to see the crowd sizes at public spaces and retail locations.
Some of the work has received funding from the National Science Foundation. The Purdue researchers also published part of their work on arXiv.
The team worked with the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization to patent their technologies.
The innovators are looking for partners to continue developing and commercializing their technology. For more information on licensing and other opportunities, contact Matt Halladay at OTC at mrhalladay@prf.org.
A Purdue student, Fischer Bordwell, has formed a startup called Alethia LLC to commercialize the technology.
Lu is the director of the John Martinson Engineering Entrepreneurial Center. He helped two teams of Purdue students start technology companies. These two companies have raised more than $1.5 million in funding.
Source: Public cameras provide valuable insights on pandemic, consumers