Thought folks might find this interesting - guess someday our field glasses and scopes will identify the birds for us:

Computer Scientists Develop an Interactive Field Guide App for Birders
UCSD News (CA) (05/08/12) Ioana Patringenaru

University of California, San Diego (UCSD) researchers have developed Visipedia, an iPad app that can identify most North American birds with minimal help from the user. Visipedia is an interactive field guide that uses computer-vision algorithms to analyze user-submitted pictures and provide information about a bird species that is a likely match. "We chose birds for several reasons: There is an abundance of excellent photos of birds available on the Internet, the diversity in appearance across different bird species presents a deep technical challenge and, perhaps most importantly, there is a large community of passionate birders who can put our system to the test," says UCSD's Serge Belongie. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has contributed its database of images showing the male, female, and juveniles of more than 500 North American birds. The goal is to have 100 images identified by experts for each species. Belongie hopes Visipedia will start a movement among other enthusiasts, who will create similar apps for other organisms, such as flowers, butterflies, lichens and mushrooms. The app will ask users specific questions about the image if it cannot come up with a match based on the original image alone.
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Geoff Snyder
Seattle
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