NEC Corporation announced on May 22, a new image recognition service for smartphones and mobile terminals that will become available in Japan at the beginning of June. The new service can provide detailed information on a wide range of subjects that appear in photos taken with mobile devices, including everything from food to automobiles.
According to NEC, the system provides high speed, highly accurate image recognition services. It utilizes NEC‘s internally developed image recognition technologies, and original NEC technologies that compress image data and reduce the amount of calculations required for an application. This makes it possible for the system to effectively operate on even the limited computing resources of mobile terminals.
Using an image database in combination with this new high speed and highly accurate image recognition system, it becomes possible for businesses to quickly provide their own custom applications for smartphones and easily include image recognition functionality
As an example, health care providers and nutritionists could offer services for individuals with special dietary needs. With an application in their smartphone, patients could with the help of the service take photos of a meal in order to have detailed information about it. This could include everything from calories, ingredients, to recipes. With the help of a cloud service this could be displayed directly on their mobile device at their convenience.
To provide a relevant and updated service, systems like image processing engines, and the possibility to renew information and an image database is vital. With NEC‘s new image recognition service, all of these tools are provided in the cloud. This could free up a lot of time for service providers if they don’t have to develop different systems on their own. This in turn makes it possible to launch and maintain a new service much faster and more efficiently.
NEC has an accomplished history of developing and providing recognition services for a wide range of industries, including products with fingerprint and face recognition technologies that are used in airport immigration facilities, entry/exit systems for large corporations and other identification systems for enhancing security.
This new service capitalizes on NEC‘s experience and technologies to accurately recognize images related to a large cross section of products, places and services, which improves user convenience and creates new business opportunities. NEC aims to promote this service and expand sales through mobile communications providers, manufacturers, retailers, agricultural use, tourism purposes and more.
