1. A visual recognition apparatus for identifying objects captured in a video stream having a captured time period, the apparatus comprising: an image sensor configured for capturing a video stream; a computer processor; and programming for processing said video stream to perform visual recognition by performing steps comprising: capturing the video stream from said image sensor; associating each frame in an image with a corresponding frame in temporally adjacent images, or in images taken from nearby vantage points; and temporally aggregating statistics computed at one or more collections of temporally corresponding frames, into a descriptor.