Slashback: Counterstrike, Identification, Patenxtortion

Slashback has updates tonight on the fate of Counterstrike in Germany, PanIP's lawsuit-happy past, and facial recognition software's spotty results so far. Go on, read more!

False negatives, false positives, anda false sense of assurance. coryboehne writes: "TechNews has a report on the face recognition system installed at the Palm Beach Internation Airport early results of face-recognition surveillance suggest the technology is proving once again to be unreliable.

The ACLU said the first four weeks of testing at the Palm Beach airport showed the technology was "less accurate than a coin toss." The system matched the faces of the volunteers just 455 out of 958 times, or about 47 percent of the time.

Seems to me that this is a controlled environment for the most part, and still they have problems this big? I wonder if this technology will ever be accurate enough to work properly. I suppose the biggest problem is the size of the database that would be necessary to hold the high quality pictures necessary for accurate identification.

However I must admit that I am rather glad that this is'nt working yet as I'm not too sure I even like the idea of being able to digitally locate and track anyone within range of a camera."

This is what's meant by "repeat offender." Audent writes: "Following on from this story on Slashdot about PanIP's nasty habits, InfoWorld is running a story about it all.

To quote from the story about PanIP's boss:

'These lawsuits aren't the first time that PanIP principal Lawrence Lockwood has initiated legal proceedings against companies he felt were infringing his patents. Lockwood filed a lawsuit against American Airlines in 1994, claiming that American's SABREvision airline reservation system infringed on other patents he holds. Lockwood lost the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California and then lost again on appeal in 1997.'

He's since had a bunch of patents disallowed. He's obviously learned from his earlier 'mistake' and is only going for the smaller companies.

Kick his ass I say. Disclaimer: I work for IDG Comms in New Zealand)."

Temporary sanity. CyberQ writes: "Some news from Germany on the censorship front: Despite demands from prominent politicians the responsible Federal Authority decided today not to ban the sale of Counterstrike to minors [Link in German, use the fish]. This came after weeks of public discussion following a school shooting by a student who apparently trained by playing CS."

Comments

I saw a funny headline

[Henry V .009]

This headline nearly made me crack up:

The worst mass murder in Germany...
since World War II.

Maybe it's not the video games after all?

Larouche!

[a3d0a3m]

Here's a reply from a presidential hopeful, Lyndon Larouche. Here's what he has to say about video game violence.

Here is Mr. LaRouche's reply.
Thanks,
Beth Pascali
Webmaster
PS: I believe that the articles written by his associates that he refers
to are
posted on the site of the newsweekly Executive Intelligence Review,
which is
http://www.larouchepub.com. If you go there and search on "New Violence"

you will see a fair amount of material.

TO: Adam T. Rzepka [adam@imsa.edu]

Dear Adam:

Wow! That is a big subject-area. To develop a general overview of
the subject-area in which the military use of point and shoot video
games arises, you might wish to dip into Stewart Brand's "The Media
Lab," published (1987) by Viking and as a Penguin book. That
describes the general setting in an easy writing-style. For a more
narrowly focussed follow-up on the spill-over from military
applications , there are a number of reports written by my associates,
on our websites. These include our coverage of Columbine,
Littleton, and now Erfurt. I featured this matter in a special
campaign project, on the subject of "The New Violence," I
conducted in 2000. My wife, Helga just produced a policy-paper
addressing some implications of Erfurt.

This is a major topic for me right now, and therefore I expect a
continued outpouring of relevant materials on ths subject.

- - Lyndon.

Censorship Front?

[Heghta']

Some news from Germany on the censorship front

As much as I am against the banning of cs sales to minors, I must make one thing clear. Banning the sales to minors has absolutely nothing to do with censorship. Else it would be censorship as well if a minor wasn't allowed to buy porn. Sorry, but you messed two totally different things up here.

Still, glad to see they didn't ban it, I am neither from Germany, nor do I play cs, but still, I like the gaming community.

Re:I know it's you

[DavidJA]

it was not egg troll, it was me!