Image analysis and neural networks – what happens when you teach machines to see?

Many technologies follow a'hockey stick' curve. A great number of them seem to be around for years, they are talked about within the IT industry, white papers are written about them, but it takes a long time for them to actually reach the threshold of public consciousness. This is certainly true for neural networks. This computational approach, loosely modeled on the way a biological brain solves problems, has at least in theory been discussed since as early as the 1940s. It is only recently, however, that neural networks are not only becoming a reality, but also finding real, value adding use cases.