Foveola, a new shape-recognition system, closely mimics the human visual system and is capable of recognizing a broad range of objects, the company claims.

The software mimics the processing pathway in humans’ upper visual cortex. It extracts shapes from a visual scene and assigns them a “mathematical signature.”

It can read signs, recognize faces, and dramatically improve the accuracy of handwriting recognition.

Hans Moravec has completed work on a three-dimensional robotic vision system that can navigate offices and homes. It consists of stereoscopic digital cameras and 3D grid software that determines the robot’s distance from objects by noticing the different placement of the object in the two camera images and applying a geometric equation.