As smartphones become people's primary computers and their primary cameras, there is growing demand for mobile versions of image-processing applications.
Image processing, however, can be computationally intensive and could quickly drain a cellphone's battery. Some mobile applications try to solve this problem by sending image files to a central server, which processes the images and sends them back. But with large images, this introduces significant delays and could incur costs for increased data usage.
At the Siggraph Asia conference last week, researchers from MIT, Stanford University, and Adobe Systems presented a system that, in experiments, reduced the bandwidth consumed by server-based image processing by as much as 98.5 percent, and the power consumption by as much as 85 percent.
The system sends the server a highly compressed version of an image, and the server sends back an even smaller file, which contains simple instructions for modifying the original image.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Dunbal on Sunday November 15 2015, @09:51AM
How does this cut "bandwidth" compared to processing the image locally on a device and not sending anything at all? Why do you want my pictures?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 15 2015, @12:33PM
Because
Image processing, however, can be computationally intensive and could quickly drain a cellphone's battery. Some mobile applications try to solve this problem by sending image files to a central server, which processes the images and sends them back.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 15 2015, @01:57PM
Well, why not process the images on the user's own computer instead of a central one?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 15 2015, @02:51PM
Image processing, however, can be computationally intensive and could quickly drain a cellphone's battery.
Are you incapable of reading?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 15 2015, @06:20PM
You are. The GP AC was referring to the user's PC not the user's mobile device. The GP wants his phone to automatically connect to his personal cloud instead of a 3rd party that'll keep a copy of everything you send it.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Sunday November 15 2015, @05:04PM
Well I won't trade privacy for battery life. Chargers and plugs are not that hard to come by.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Sunday November 15 2015, @07:56PM
A highly compressed image is sent to the server, which uses some fancy algorithm to tell your mobile device how to compress the image. So less data is sent between the mobile and the cloud, where before the entire image was sent to the cloud.
To address the privacy issue, I'm sure someone will develop a FOSS alternative which you can run on your own server if desired. Personally, I don't think the image processing on my phone is a large enough drain on my battery life. Unless I'm doing an album, but as was mentioned that is what chargers are for!
~Tilting at windmills~