Via boing boing: an interesting news about "software that can identify the significant events in live TV sports broadcasts will soon be able to compile programmes of highlights without any help from people.". The point is to pick out the key events from a game, that can take place at predictable locations.

Ahmet Ekin, a computer scientist from the University of Rochester in New York, may be close to solving that problem. He has designed software that looks for a specific sequence of camera shots to work out whether a goal has been scored.

For example, player close-ups often indicate a gap in play when something important has happened, and slow-motion footage is another useful cue. If Ekin's software sees a sequence of player close-ups combined with shots of the crowd and pictures in slow motion that lasts between 30 and 120 seconds, it decides that a goal has been scored, and records the clip in the highlights