Reading the time on an analogue clock is surprisingly difficult for computers, but artificial intelligence can now do so accurately using a method that had previously proved tricky to deploy.
Computer vision has long been able to read the time from digital clocks by simply looking at the numbers on the screen. But analogue clocks are much more challenging because of factors including variation in their design and the way shadows and reflections can obscure the hands.
Researchers at the University of Oxford have developed a system …