By Jeremy Hsu

A growing fleet of smart cars may add their street camera views to those of the surveillance camera networks already covering many major cities. That could open the door for a new technology that enables different video cameras to “talk” with one another and track the same individual person across many different camera views—possibly giving rise to Google Earth style maps that can display pedestrian and vehicle traffic.

The technology is based on a computer algorithm that can compare different camera views of the same person and learn to recognize the same individuals across many camera views by focusing on body color, texture and movement. Researchers envision a large-scale version of the system tracking pedestrian traffic on a virtual map—perhaps displayed on a car’s GPS screen—or enabling police to easily track fleeing suspects across multiple surveillance camera views.  …[Read more]