Is that a Sage Grouse? The New Bird App
I had never seen a bird like that! I couldn’t even describe that member of the black bird species but thanks to a new app developed by a computer-scientist-engineer at UC San Diego I could soon be able to identify it by a snap of my cell. I’m Susan Allen and I’ll tell you about this new app when Open Range returns. The soon to be released Visipedia will be a door way into the world of birds that live throughout the North American Hemisphere and it will be especially enticing for those of us who aren’t hard core bird watchers. Serge Belongie came up with the idea for developing an app that identifies uploaded pictures of birds and with the help of Cornell Universities esteemed ornithology lab he now has a large data base of images. One review I read said the app had a “handsome design.” Also that it t worked the best if the user uploaded “reasonably good photos.. The app also ask questions like, what certain feather colors can be found , then it goes to work generating results until you identify the actual bird. The designer said that while an app for bird identification was a “natural” simply because there are so many different pictures of birds on the internet Belongie acknowledged that because birds are so diverse the app also presented a technical challenge. Yet the most important ingredient for Vispedia success is the fact that bird watching is such a huge pastime. It’s highly unusual for an app to be hyped prior to it’s release but I am sure USCDavis Jacobs School of Engineering has will launch it any day now.
