Future TVs could monitor your heart health
TVs may soon offer much more than entertainment. Researchers in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT have developed a new way of measuring the heart rate
of people only with video footage to track the movements of the face conventional.
Current technology already allows the match technique. In an update coming this fall, biometric sensors Microsoft Kinect will be able to see the players start to sweat and feel the fluctuations of heart. There is not much of a leap to see how these devices could be used for more than increase the level of excitement of a racing game for a boring player.
And Microsoft is not the only company in the incorporation of biometrics in devices connected to the TV. Decoder may soon have similar capabilities. [See also: Verizon denies plan to spy on customers]
MIT has shown that the small movements of the head are linked hurry of the blood caused by contractions of the heart as it pumps blood throughout the body, and these movements can be detected video standard. In testing, video analysis was almost more accurate readings of electrocardiograms.
In addition, the video can be used to provide estimates of the time intervals between heartbeats - a measure that can be used to identify patients at risk of cardiac events, the researchers said. The results are discussed in this Summer Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Vision "and Pattern Recognition Conference.
How does it work?
MIT algorithm combines various techniques common in the field of computer vision. First, using standard face recognition to find the person's head, and then click between 500 and 1,000 points around the nose and mouth to keep track of frame by frame in a video.
"I avoided his eyes, because it does not blink, do not measure", Guha Balakrishnan, a graduate student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and principal investigator at MIT, said in a statement.
It then deletes any movement that are outside the range of a heartbeat - slow movements caused by breathing in and change position. Thus, one could isolate the remaining movements to determine the frequency of the pulse.
Balakrishnan found that it could also measure your heart rate without the use of facial recognition. Indeed, it was able to obtain similar results with only small movements to follow the back of the head of a person.
For now, Balakrishnan said that the technique should be considered as a proof of concept. In other words, it is not yet ready for installation on all gaming systems equipped with a camera, cable box or smart TV. However, over time, the potential health benefits could give people a reason to be grateful for the television experience looking back. Sharing is sexy
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