Slashdot Mirror

Facial recognition technology is making its way into schools, raising privacy concerns among parents and officials. The New York Civil Liberties Union issued a report on the matter that focuses on one public school district in particular: Western New York's Lockport School District. "News reports indicate the district plans to have the invasive and error-prone technology installed by next school year," reports NYCLU. The Union sent a letter (PDF) to the New York State Education Department urging it to consider students' and teachers' privacy in reviewing the use of surveillance technology by school districts. They also "sent a freedom of information request to the district seeking details of how and where the technology will be used as well as who will have access to the sensitive data that gets collected."

The report highlights some of the concerns/negatives of such a system. For starters, it costs millions of dollars (Lockport spent almost $4 million), which could be used for things like Wi-Fi, new computers, or 3D printers. It has the "potential to turn every step a student takes into evidence of a crime." The databases could include those used for immigration enforcement, making parents of immigrant students afraid to send their children to school for fear that they or their children could end up on ICE's radar. Last but not least, since facial recognition is notoriously inaccurate, "innocent students are likely to be misidentified and punished for things they didn't do."

Of course, it isn't all bad. Proponents of the system say it can be used to alert officials to whenever sex offenders, suspended students, fired employees, suspected gang members, or anyone else placed on a school's "blacklist" enters the premises. Do you think facial recognition cameras belong in schools?

Earlier this week, Tesla signed a non-binding agreement to buy solar cells from a new Panasonic factory in Buffalo, New York -- but it's part of a much bigger maneuver. An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: "If all goes to plan, Tesla will be supplying customers with the solar panels that generate electricity that could then be used to charge the battery in their Tesla car or the battery in the Tesla Powerwall home energy storage system," reports the Christian Science Monitor. The Wall Street Journal reports that Musk's SolarCity "will sell, finance and install the panels."

But the Buffalo News suggests the deal is really "aimed squarely at skeptical shareholders" who may be leary of a proposed merger between Tesla and SolarCity," which one analyst calculates will require nearly $6 billion in extra capital. Panasonic could help shoulder the costs of the Buffalo factory, while also putting a more experienced manufacturer in charge of producing high-efficiency solar modules.
The Stack reports some shareholders have actually filed a lawsuit against the merger.

HughPickens.com writes Christina Nunez reports in National Geographic that in the past four years, at least 29 coal-fired plants in 10 states have switched to natural gas or biomass while another 54 units, mostly in the US Northeast and Midwest, are slated to be converted over the next nine years. By switching to natural gas, plant operators can take advantage of a relatively cheap and plentiful US supply. The change can also help them meet proposed federal rules to limit heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, given that electricity generation from natural gas emits about half as much carbon as electricity from coal does.

But not everyone is happy with the conversions. The Dunkirk plant in western New York, slated for conversion to natural gas, is the focus of a lawsuit by environmental groups that say the $150 million repowering will force the state's energy consumers to pay for an unnecessary facility. "What we're concerned about is that the Dunkirk proceeding is setting a really, really bad precedent where we're going to keep these old, outdated, polluting plants on life support for political reasons," says Christopher Amato. Dunkirk's operator, NRG, wanted to mothball the plant in 2012, saying it was not economical to run. The utility, National Grid, said shutting it down could make local power supplies less reliable, a problem that could be fixed by boosting transmission capacity—at a lower cost than repowering Dunkirk. Meanwhile the citizens of Dunkirk are happy the plant is staying open. "We couldn't let it happen. We would lose our tax base, we would lose our jobs, we would lose our future," said State Sen. Catharine M. Young. "This agreement saves us. It gives us a foundation on which to build our economy. It gives us hope. This is our community's Christmas miracle!"

HughPickens.com writes Christina Nunez reports in National Geographic that in the past four years, at least 29 coal-fired plants in 10 states have switched to natural gas or biomass while another 54 units, mostly in the US Northeast and Midwest, are slated to be converted over the next nine years. By switching to natural gas, plant operators can take advantage of a relatively cheap and plentiful US supply. The change can also help them meet proposed federal rules to limit heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, given that electricity generation from natural gas emits about half as much carbon as electricity from coal does.

But not everyone is happy with the conversions. The Dunkirk plant in western New York, slated for conversion to natural gas, is the focus of a lawsuit by environmental groups that say the $150 million repowering will force the state's energy consumers to pay for an unnecessary facility. "What we're concerned about is that the Dunkirk proceeding is setting a really, really bad precedent where we're going to keep these old, outdated, polluting plants on life support for political reasons," says Christopher Amato. Dunkirk's operator, NRG, wanted to mothball the plant in 2012, saying it was not economical to run. The utility, National Grid, said shutting it down could make local power supplies less reliable, a problem that could be fixed by boosting transmission capacity—at a lower cost than repowering Dunkirk. Meanwhile the citizens of Dunkirk are happy the plant is staying open. "We couldn't let it happen. We would lose our tax base, we would lose our jobs, we would lose our future," said State Sen. Catharine M. Young. "This agreement saves us. It gives us a foundation on which to build our economy. It gives us hope. This is our community's Christmas miracle!"

Nerval's Lobster writes "Can data-analytics software win a Super Bowl? That's what the Buffalo Bills are betting on: the NFL team will create an analytics department to crunch player data, building on a model already well established in professional baseball and basketball. 'We are going to create and establish a very robust football analytics operation that we layer into our entire operation moving forward,' Buffalo Bills president Russ Brandon recently told The Buffalo News. 'That's something that's very important to me and the future of the franchise.' The increased use of analytics in other sports, he added, led him to make the decision: 'We've seen it in the NBA. We've seen it more in baseball. It's starting to spruce its head a little bit in football, and I feel we're missing the target if we don't invest in that area of our operation, and we will.'"

fistfullast33l writes "The Associated Press is reporting that the Justice Department, FCC, and New York State Attorney General approved portions of a deal between Verizon Wireless and cable companies Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Cox to sell parts of the wireless spectrum to Verizon for $3.9 billion. However, the Justice Department rejected the agreement between the two groups to allow Verizon to market cable services in its stores in markets where it also offers FIOS service. The spectrum will be used to increase Verizon's 4G LTE network coverage. Verizon will also sell some spectrum to T-Mobile. Consumer groups were very concerned about the cross-marketing by Verizon: 'When it comes to home broadband, Verizon Communication Inc.'s FiOS provides the only significant competition to cable in many areas. Yet FiOS is costly to build out, and Verizon's commitment to the technology has faltered. Consumer groups and unions that opposed the deal between the cable companies and Verizon said it showed that Verizon was further giving up on FiOS and yielding the home broadband market to cable.'"

DesScorp writes "It's the end of an era in auto technology, as the very last big block V-8 engine from GM has rolled off the production line. The L18 engine was the last variant of an engine that had been in continuous production for over 50 years. The big blocks powered everything from the classic muscle cars of the '60s and '70s to heavy-duty trucks today. From the Buffalo News: 'When GM said last June the L18 would be eliminated by year's end, the announcement triggered another show of devotion to the product. Some customers ordered two years' worth of L18s, to put on the shelf for future use.' More than 5 million big blocks have been produced over the engine's history. The final big block engine to come off the line in Tonawanda, NY is headed for the GM Heritage Center in Sterling Heights, MI."

A neo-Nazi group who adopted a half-mile section of highway in Springfield, Kansas last year may find their pure highway renamed after rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Although lawmakers were not happy about the adoption, they had no choice but to accept the group's application. In 2005 the US Supreme Court ruled that a group can't be denied entry to the Adopt-A-Highway program because of its political beliefs. The final solution for Kansas lawmakers seems to be renaming the highway.

boustrophedon writes "The Buffalo News reports that QRS Music Technologies halted production of player piano rolls 108 years after the company was founded in Chicago. QRS continues to make digitized and computerized player-piano technology that runs on CDs. 'We're still doing what we always did, which is to provide software for pianos that play themselves. It's just the technology that has changed. But I would be lying to say [the halting of production] doesn't sadden me,' said Bob Berkman, the company's music director. Piano rolls can last for decades, but not forever. Volunteers at the International Association of Mechanical Music Preservationists build piano-roll scanners to scan rolls optically and convert them to MIDI files. The IAMMP archive and others contain thousands of scanned rolls."

RealPerseus writes "The Buffalo News reports today in this article that the 100th annivsary of air conditioning is upon us. Who would have thought that air conditioning was invented in Buffalo?"

RealPerseus writes "The Buffalo News reports today in this article that the 100th annivsary of air conditioning is upon us. Who would have thought that air conditioning was invented in Buffalo?"