Skip to main content

Kickstarter machine-vision camera gives your robot project eyes and a brain

jevois kickstarter video
You only need to pop open a website detailing the latest happenings in artificial intelligence (may we recommend Digital Trends?) to be aware that some exciting stuff is going on right now.

But while it’s all well and good to know that these breakthroughs are taking place in labs, and will one day trickle down to consumer products, what if you want to take advantage of some of them in your own DIY Arduino robot project — and without having to first earn a PhD in computer science?

Fortunately, a new Kickstarter project offers one possible answer. Created by Dr. Laurent Itti, professor of computer science, psychology and neuroscience at the University of Southern California, JeVois in a diminutive, open-source, quad-core smart machine vision camera designed for users to incorporate into their “maker” projects.

Coming preprogrammed with a bank of cutting-edge algorithms, the camera will not only record images, but will also let your robot project make sense of them. Results are streamed over USB to a host computer, or over a serial port to a micro-controller.

“A lot of progress has been made in machine learning and machine vision,” Dr. Itti told Digital Trends. “However, this is often still confined to the lab. What we want to do is to help people use some of these algorithms in their own projects by providing them with a platform which lets them experience them, without having to program them on their own. This is like having a smartphone but no programming experience. Instead, you just go to the App Store and download the apps that you need. You can still enjoy them, even if you don’t know how they work.”

Image used with permission by copyright holder

JeVois opens up an exciting range of possibilities and potential use-cases.

“Recognizing QR codes is one that everyone will understand,” he continued. “But there are other, more advanced things you can do as well. For example, you could get it to detect roads if you’re trying to build an autonomous car. We also have algorithms that can detect objects, algorithms that can help your robot work out which room it is in, and more.”

Some of the other applications not mentioned by Itti include human face detection, eye-tracking, object recognition in cluttered scenes, and a wealth of others. Many of the algorithms operate at 30, 60 or 120 frames per second, and if you have the necessary coding know-how, you can also program new algorithms yourself.

At present, JeVois is raising funds on Kickstarter, where you can pre-order a unit starting at $49 for the Barebones Kit. Shipping is set to start in February, with the majority of orders arriving in March.

Editors' Recommendations

Luke Dormehl
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2023 Awards
Best of CES 2023 Awards Our Top Tech from the Show Feature

Let there be no doubt: CES isn’t just alive in 2023; it’s thriving. Take one glance at the taxi gridlock outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and it’s evident that two quiet COVID years didn’t kill the world’s desire for an overcrowded in-person tech extravaganza -- they just built up a ravenous demand.

From VR to AI, eVTOLs and QD-OLED, the acronyms were flying and fresh technologies populated every corner of the show floor, and even the parking lot. So naturally, we poked, prodded, and tried on everything we could. They weren’t all revolutionary. But they didn’t have to be. We’ve watched enough waves of “game-changing” technologies that never quite arrive to know that sometimes it’s the little tweaks that really count.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more
AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying
Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."

Read more