Gunshot Tracking Cameras to be Deployed in LA

apok04 writes "Get out your tinfoil hats (and ski masks). A USC engineer uses his expertise with nerve cells to create a surveillance system that can recognize the sound of a nearby gunshot - and identify the shooter. In a unique pilot program, L.A. and Chicago will deploy test units in high-crime areas. The creator emphasizes that the system cannot recognize voices or words, but his previous research into speech recognition systems suggests otherwise."

Comments

As one currently working for a voice company

[SteroidMan]

The profile for a voice is much different from that of a gunshot, and creating a multi-purpose system to do this would make both perform much worse.

Also speech recognition knowledge is very different from speaker recognition (one cares about what the person says regardless of how they say it, the other cares about how they say it regardless of what it is). The mathematical models for both are very different.

Also the microphones are likely specialized in the wrong frequency/volume range to be useful for speaker authentication.

prior art

[nootoochee]

1917 ish. Somebody in the Canadian Expeditionary Force to WWI figured out how to accurately direct counter artillery fire using two human ears, a telephone and some trigonometry. The Germans never did figure out why they couldn't fire more than a round or two before they got nailed.