Like a digital camera, the retina does basic optical processing like edge detection and enhancement and color separation.

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SceneTap has installed an entire infrastructure of cameras in each of its participating bars, utilizing cutting-edge facial detection and "people-counting" technologies to automatically collect and provide data on the venue's customers.

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But among the tasks the machine can perform in a single step are edge detection, inversion, the identification of lines and shapes of different orientations, and the filling-in of concave shapes all things that are useful in image-processing, and not all of which can be managed by digital technology.

ECONOMIST: Analogue computing