1. A networked camera comprising: an image sensor to generate a sequence of images; a processor coupled to the image sensor to abstract semantic forms, to compress data from the images in the feature domain using the semantic abstraction, to generate sparse image data describing low level features based on the compressed image data, to generate actionable insights based on the semantic abstraction, and to select the sparse image data and metadata to be sent to a central node based on the insights; and a communications interface coupled to the processor to send the sparse image data describing low level features and metadata information through a network connection to a central node so that the central node is able to perform detection, tracking and recognition on the received sparse image data and metadata.