Famous xkcd comic comes full circle with AI bird-identifying binoculars

Final week, Austria-based Swarovski Optik introduced the AX Visio 10×32 binoculars, which the corporate says can determine over 9,000 species of birds and mammals utilizing picture recognition expertise. The corporate is asking the product the world’s first “good binoculars,” and so they include a hefty price tag—$4,799.

“The AX Visio are the world’s first AI-supported binoculars,” the corporate says within the product’s press launch. “On the contact of a button, they help with the identification of birds and different creatures, enable discoveries to be shared, and supply a variety of sensible further features.”

The binoculars, aimed principally at chicken watchers, achieve their means to determine birds from the Merlin Bird ID challenge, created by Cornell Lab of Ornithology. As confirmed by a hands-on demo performed by The Verge, the person appears at an animal by the binoculars and presses a button. A crimson progress circle fills in whereas the binoculars course of the picture, then the recognized animal title pops up on the built-in binocular HUD display screen inside about 5 seconds.

In 2014, a well-known xkcd sketch titled Tasks depicted somebody asking a developer to create an app that, when a person takes a photograph, will examine whether or not the person is in a nationwide park (deemed straightforward attributable to GPS) and examine whether or not the photograph is of a chicken (to which the developer says, “I will want a analysis staff and 5 years”). The caption beneath reads, “In CS, it may be onerous to clarify the distinction between the straightforward and the nearly unattainable.”

It has been simply over 9 years since the comic was published, and whereas figuring out the presence of a chicken in a photograph was solved a while in the past, these binoculars arguably go additional by figuring out the species of the chicken within the photograph (it additionally retains observe of location attributable to GPS). Whereas apps to determine chicken species already exist, this function is now packed right into a handheld pair of binoculars.

In response to Swarovski, the event of the AX Visio took roughly 5 years, involving round 390 “{hardware} elements.” The binoculars incorporate a neural processing unit (NPU) for object recognition processing. The corporate claims that the gadget could have a protracted product life cycle, with ongoing updates and enhancements. The corporate additionally mentions “an open programming interface” in its press launch, probably permitting industrious customers (or useful hackers) to develop the unit’s options over time.

The binoculars, which function industrial design from Marc Newson, embrace built-in digital digicam, compass, GPS, and discovery-sharing options that may “instantly present your companion the place you have got seen an animal.” The Visio unit additionally wirelessly ties into the “SWAROVSKI OPTIK Out of doors App” that may run on a smartphone. The app manages sharing photographs and movies captured by the binoculars. (As an apart, we have come a good distance from computer-connected devices that required pesky serial cables within the late Nineteen Nineties.)

Swarovski says the AX Visio might be out there at choose retailers and on-line beginning February 1, 2024. Whereas this tech is at a premium value proper now, given the pace of tech progress and market competitors, we may even see related image-recognizing options constructed into less expensive fashions within the years forward.