Pssst. The CIA is backing a local startup that has invented
a program to sightlessly scan millions of digital images,
winnowing this visual chaff to present human analysts with
only those pictures likely to contain a threat.
In-Q-Tel, a CIA-funded venture firm based in Alexandria,
Va., said Tuesday that it is making an unspecified investment
in PixLogic, a software firm in Los Altos.
Created in 1999, In-Q-Tel is a nonprofit venture firm that
uses CIA funds to back promising technologies with national
security applications. PixLogic, which recently won U.S.
Patent 6,563,959 to cover its new image-searching technology,
is a 10-person startup.
"The CIA does not want us to speculate at all on how they
are using the software," said Bob McKee, vice president for
business development at the tiny firm.
But it doesn't take a top-secret clearance to guess the
CIA's interest in PixLogic, whose patented software can detect
patterns by analyzing the pixels of digital image files --
without printing out the pictures and having a person or
computerized camera "look" at the images.
The software ultimately could be used for everything from
helping authorities scan digital pictures or videos for
threats, to allowing Web browsers to find images on the
Internet.
"Today we take it for granted that we can search for text,
but we can't do the same thing for images," In-Q-Tel spokesman
Greg Pepus said.
Text-search programs can find any word -- as long as it is
spelled correctly -- because words always appear the same. But
images are variable, PixLogic's McKee said. What the company
has invented is a mathematical formula that analyzes the raw
pixels in a digital file, detects patterns in these pixels,
and then matches these patterns against a database of known
images.
McKee offered this example. Say the PixLogic database
already had studied an image of the Eiffel Tower. Then say the
software was fed thousands of digital images of Paris, and
tasked with picking out only those that contain the famed
landmark. McKee said the program could probably make the
correct pick 80 percent of the time.
But he said the program still has great difficulty matching
faces with any degree of confidence because people can
disguise themselves very easily with facial hair or glasses.
"We do pick up faces in a crowd," he said, adding that the
program could find all the people with blond hair and red
shirts in a morass of digital images, and thus narrow down the
task for human investigators looking for a particular
red-shirted blond.
Beyond any potential national security uses, PixLogic hopes
to sell its software to commercial photography firms, media
companies, film studios, and any firm with a large library of
digital images that need to be searched or categorized.
McKee said several commercial firms, which he was not at
liberty to disclose, are evaluating the PixLogic software.
Financial terms of the In-Q- Tel investment were not
disclosed.
Email Tom Abate at tabate@sfchronicle.com.
