Many smartphone owners are familiar with photo filter apps like Instagram, AfterLight, Aviary and Fused, all of which facilitate the most aesthetically pleasing image. These are the offspring of worldwide innovation competition combined with the ever-increasing power of smartphone chips. In addition, digital giants like Baidu, Facebook and Google provide server-based image identification features.
Into this arena steps Impala App from Euvision Technologies (recently acquired by Qualcomm). It’s believed to be the first “smart photography” technology solution that both modifies and categorizes photos completely within a smartphone—no servers required. Available free from the Apple ITunes and Google Play, Impala automatically creates a series of labeled folders (such as animals, automobiles or mountains) and places these images into folders to assist user in locating them.
Morever, Impala has taken blocking content to a higher level. It’s one of the more interesting and exciting capabilities of the app. Just as software like Photoshop prevents users from uploading a file containing a scanned federal banknote, Impala has applied these engines to assist media platforms to moderate content.
For an example of these impressive capabilities, Impala is trained to recognize hands. Hands were chosen for representation of color, texture, and shape of certain unwanted scenes. Once the hand becomes visible in the camera’s field of view, the hand is pixilated, and the recording button is made inactive preventing the capture of the image.
Now replace that hand recognition for Adult Content Classifier and this technology goes to another level. It also does not store questionable images on the cloud. Could this be the end of celebrity nude hacking scandals? Hollywood should be cheering. TMZ not so much.
Jaime Nash
Art Director
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