Intelligent Carpet Gives Insight Into Human Poses - Liwaiwai

The sentient Magic Carpet from Aladdin might have a new competitor. While it can't fly or speak, a new tactile sensing carpet from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) can estimate human poses without using cameras, in a step towards improving self-powered personalized healthcare, smart homes, and gaming. Many of our daily activities involve physical contact with the ground: walking, exercising, or resting. These embedded interactions contain a wealth of information that help us better understand people's movements. Previous research has leveraged use of single RGB cameras, (think Microsoft Kinect), wearable omnidirectional cameras, and even plain old off the shelf webcams, but with the inevitable byproducts of camera occlusions and privacy concerns.