Following Dr. Theo Lynn on stage was Dr. Mark Hughes who is the CEO/Chief Technical Officer at a company called Digifeye. According to Dr. Hughes, Digifeye ‘focuses on merging computer vision and machine learning technology to convert visual content into shopable products’ by working with the world’s leading publishing and retail companies.
First off, we were introduced with the statistic that over 250 million images are uploaded online everyday. Have you ever come across an image of someone famous for example, Kate Middleton or Kim Kardashian, wearing a stunning dress that you would love to have yourself but you have no idea where to get it? I know I have.
With the use of computer vision and image recognition technology, computers can be thought how to recognize where clothes are in a photo, whether it is a man or a woman in the photo, what type of clothes are in the photo etc. I personally found this quite alluring as I am very interested in the development of new technology.
Digifeye works with over 900 US and UK retailers which include River Island, Debenhams, Oasis and Top Shop. According to Dr. Mark Hughes, it ‘revolutionizes the personal shopping experience for todays fashionistas.’ It converts browsers into buyers and drives purchases by delivering visually similar options. These computers can also generate outfits, trends, suggestions and accessories that are relevant to the product.
I was fascinated by this talk about Digifeye and how these people were able to teach computers how to complete these amazing tasks and make our shopping experience much easier.
DICE2014/15 