Microsoft is developing a secret spy camera technology that uses AI to fix broken images

But no, the spy camera wouldn’t actually spy on you. It’s a bit of a different technology that would place cameras behind your screen, capture images, and then use AI to fix the broken ones.

The technology called Image Restoration for Thorugh Display Imaging was detailed by Microsoft researchers in a recently published patent and despite the fancy title, the secret cameras would actually be cameras implanted behind the screen that would serve an image restoration application at users’ consent.

This camera system sits behind a display screen and it could be added to any device, computer, or mobile phone. The camera would be hidden, so the images it captures would be a bit blurry or noisy.

However, the system would also employ AI (the paper mentions it as a machine learning model) to fix these blurry images. Here is how the technology would work:

1. The camera captures degraded images.
2. They use a machine learning model to fix these blurry images.

They train the model using pairs of images. One image is clear (like a regular photo). The other image is the degraded version (as seen by the hidden camera).

The model learns from these pairs and figures out what’s missing in the blurry images. It’s like teaching the model to see through the camera’s eyes and fill in the gaps. In other words, the system helps improve the quality of images taken by that sneaky behind-display camera.

The applications for this technology would range from personal use to professional use. In the case of mobile phones, cameras would automatically be able to correct the images taken in blurry situations (for instance, selfies with too much light), while in desktop situations, this feature would greatly enhance the web camera, and assert it to perfect conditions in teleconferencing.

The patent can be read in its entirety here, and it will most likely be released as an essential Windows feature in the next few years. Remember that Microsoft is set to release an AI-based Windows in the future, and while we don’t know many details about it, we know for sure that it’s going to be groundbreaking, as reports agreed.

Could Microsoft include technology that uses a secret spy camera and AI to improve images? Most likely, yes, but it could be in a different form.