On Sun, 17 Jan 2016 03:20:28 -0700, Don Y wrote:

Think about it. If they can examine all the RAW VIDEO coming in from
their roving drones to *isolate* the house number, do you really think
they can't figure out what the number *is*?
How do they know where the number is located on the property?
On the house? Mailbox? Curb? etc. Do they show you a picture of a
HOUSE and tell YOU to find the number -- and tell them what it is??

Recognizing digits is relatively trivial. The post office recognizes
HAND PRINTED zip codes on mail FLYING past a camera at a high rate of
speed. Surely, recognizing STORE BOUGHT digits (that THEY have already
"located") is a piece of cake! Especially for a firm that has THOUSANDS
of computers available to do that work!

Note that they also have some clues as to what valid responses (for
THEIR recognizer algorithms) are likely to be. I suspect they already
have a database that tells them the street numbers at each cross street.
So, they know the upper and lower limits on the numbers between any two
intersections.

Additionally, they have *some* idea of the number for the house
immediately "before" and "after" the house in question.
If the previous is "5" and the next is "15", then it's probably a safe
bet to assume the current house is NOT "23" but, rather "13"!
And, as numbers tend to be odd/even (alternate sides of the street), you
can bet it's "13" and not "12"!

A more interesting challenge would be to see how "13-1/2" would be
handled. Or, "27B".

When Kurzweil created the "Data Entry System", an "operator" monitored
an image of the text that was being scanned. So,
if the algorithms were unsure of their results, they could highlight the
portion of the image and ask the operator for clarification. This may
be how (relatively RARE)
exceptions like "13-1/2" are handled!

Here are some captchas I found today of actual mailbox numbers:
https://i.imgur.com/8DVqqom.gif
https://i.imgur.com/1xWUy9v.gif
https://i.imgur.com/mwjODws.gif

Here are curb numbers:
https://i.imgur.com/5av6CJ4.gif
https://i.imgur.com/kF8gc3e.gif
https://i.imgur.com/s6IgAGP.gif
https://i.imgur.com/LB9mttl.gif
https://i.imgur.com/52AS1WW.gif
https://i.imgur.com/HyHADIJ.gif

And here are house numbers:
https://i.imgur.com/WF6jAto.gif
https://i.imgur.com/Gs4KRlh.gif
https://i.imgur.com/N1iZ45D.gif
https://i.imgur.com/kzGJ6o4.gif
https://i.imgur.com/578OzJK.gif

And even numbers attached to the roofline!
https://i.imgur.com/9zLilRH.gif

I wonder how they even FIND these numbers, automatically anyway?