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Holograms Help Protect Super Bowl

Apache4857 writes to tell us CNet is reporting that Homeland Security agents monitoring the Superbowl will be doing so in 3D. Using streams from two cameras, the LifeVision 3D system is able to project images onto a 20-inch screen that is equipped with a depth tube. This depth tube makes images appear to rise 30 inches off the screen and sink 30 inches into the screen allowing real world volumes and distances to be displayed accurately. Using this system security officials will be able to search sidewalks, monitor faces, and even peer under vehicles.

19 of 287 comments (clear)

  1. And in related news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Jem and the Holograms will perform at the half-time show.

  2. But still... by imsabbel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    this isnt a hologram.
    (i know hologram sounds cool, but you cannot call any crap that has some stereoscopic view that way)

    --
    HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
  3. 3-D viewing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maybe the agents just want to view the wardrobe malfunctions in 3-D.

  4. I don't get it by g253 · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is massively cool and all, but how is it helpful to peer under vehicles? You don't need 3D for that, and 3D won't help if the cameras are too high above ground... Anyway, they'll just use it to peer under skirts, like we would.

  5. Cool tech, but.... by Vengeance_au · · Score: 5, Funny

    What the hell is this technology doing being deployed in a security role? The rule is : ALL COOL TECH IS DEVELOPED FOR PORN! It then trickles down into other mundane uses, like saving our lives.

    1. Re:Cool tech, but.... by forkazoo · · Score: 4, Funny

      They are hoping for another nipple exposure.

  6. Thank God! by RyatNrrd · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nothing is too elaborate to protect us from Janet's Terror-Boobs!

  7. Gosh, how terribly impressive! by imipak · · Score: 5, Insightful
    but, astonishing as it sounds, terrorists watch TV, too. No doubt the people physically at the Superbowl are a little bit safer (and probably feel a bit safer, as well) for all this techno. Sadly, however, the hypothetical station-wagon full of stereotypical evil bearded Muslim fundamentalists (possibly with swords between their teeth and eyepatches? Who dares imagine what shapes the great American subconscious dreams...) - anyway, they're going to screech to a halt in a cloud of rubber. "Mustapha, you son of an infidel! The place is swarming with cops. Curses!!!!!!" *twirls moustache furiously for a moment* "I know, we'll do it next Saturday, at the Denver Earthworms vs. Seattle Turnipfarmers game, instead. Bwaa,hahahahaha!"

    Net result in security: nil.

    Bruce Schneier has some excellent things to say about "security" measures that defend against movie-plot threats. If you don't read Crypto-Gram yet, go sign yourself up, and learn how counter-intuitive reality can be.

    (You might also think about how little you should trust your own intuition, and then deduce things about people who boast of theirs... but I don't want to interfere with domestic political matters :)

    1. Re:Gosh, how terribly impressive! by StikyPad · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sort of like "I know burgalars are just going to come in through the windows, so I don't lock my doors." Other sentiments along those lines include:

      "There's no point patching XP; any real hacker will just discover a new exploit."
      "Why bathe? I'm just going to get dirty again!"
      "No point saving this money when I'm just going to spend it eventually anyway!"

      I mean really, when you get down to it, the only thing police do is clean up after crimes; they almost never prevent them. We could save tons of money if we just abolished law enforcement.

      It's impossible to prevent every eventuality, but if you can reasonably implement measures to stop or deter most of the obvious ones, there's no reason not to. Conversely, it doesn't make sense to pour resources into preventing unlikely attacks. Should we set up a grid underground to prevent someone from tunneling in? Equip the stadium with rotary blades in case it needs to make a quick getaway? With finite resources, you have to apply them toward preventing the most obvious scenarios, and then work your way toward less the less likely/feasible options. And unless security is priceless to you, you quickly reach the point of diminishing returns. The whole reason people are upset about the PATRIOT Act, NSA spying, etc. is because they believe it's too high of a price to pay for security. But apparently you disagree.

  8. B*lls**t by scdeimos · · Score: 5, Interesting
    "For the military, it can offer much better facial recognition," Fischbach said. "Instead of looking at a two-dimensional photo, you're looking at an entire head."
    Anyone who's worked on stereoscopic vision (which is all that this is) will tell you this is crap. With a pair of cameras mounted like "eyes" (5-15cm apart) you're still only seeing one side of the object. The depth information is extremely helpful in feature extraction, but you're still only seeing one side of the object.
  9. Protecting an obvious target by Shihar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is a fucking high porfile ball game with tens of thousands of people attending it and being watched by hundreds millions of people. If you want to kill a lot of people and have it seen live on TV around the world, the Super Bowl is the place to do it. You couldn't pick a better target in terms of mass death and live coverage. They are not protecting it because they love football. They are protecting it because it is a big gleeming target with a bulls eye on it.

    1. Re:Protecting an obvious target by Firehed · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Anywhere that there's an attack will be on TV pretty quick. I dunno about you, but I didn't know of the existance of a WTC-channel prior to the 9/11 attacks. And boy did that get media coverage. Why'd they choose there? Not only because that it stood for things they're against, but because you have an incredibly high density of civilians. They could just as easily blow up a concert where you also have a high density of people, and it'll get just as much coverage. The only reason they'd target the Super Bowl in the first place is because we're so fired up over security, and it would help thier cause to demonstrate our incompetence if they were to succeed. Remember that whacko at the Olympics a while back? There's a huge density of people there *because* it's so popular. Can you think of a more densely-populated thing to attack than a massive sporting event or a skyscraper office building?

      Attacks don't follow the media; the media follows the attacks. If they happen to be in the same place at the same time, it's just more convenient for both of them. If anything, this would be the day to go the capitol building or something, just because security's all scrabling over the game.

      --
      How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
  10. Re:Corporate Welfare by green+pizza · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Tell me again... why do taxpayer dollars have to pay for security at this game? Let the NFL pay for their own damn security.

    Because tax-paying Americans are the vast majority of those attending the Super Bowl, which is held here on our homeland, in the United States of America.

    Put another way, if there is an emergency at your local shopping mall, it's the local taxpayer-supported police and fire departments that will come to help. The mall rent-a-cops are only there as first responders and as a first line of defense. The local taxpayer-supported agencies do all of the real work, including booking/charging teenage petty theft.

  11. Terrorists obviously want to attack the Superbowl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    because we think it is important. So we pour millions of dollars in taxpayer funded security when the terrorists might as well go to the basketball game next door (or a mall) to do their dirty work. Not only is it easier but we end up buying useless 3D remote cameras to look under cars. I swear the government has been watching too much TV about govt. super agents.

  12. Terror defense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Require everyone to eat a strip of bacon before they're allowed in

  13. Re:No lasers mentioned. by JohnFluxx · · Score: 4, Informative

    I am a holographic engineer.

    This is not a hologram because it is not creating an interference pattern. No phase information is stored.

    To make a real hologram, you do need a monochromatic light source. Before lasers they used various lamps (mercury lamp etc) that illuminate at specific wavelengths. This does kinda work, but has a very short coherence length so is bad for making analogue holograms (a hologram of an actual object). Quite possibly a lamp could be used for copying holograms or for digital holography.

  14. Homeland Security Purchase Order by sabNetwork · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sir, uh, we need $150,000 for a holographic 3D TV to watch the Superbowl on. For uh, national security.

    Oh yeah, and... we need $1,000 for a large order of chicken wings. Those bad guys might try to poison those. We want to be the first to know.

    And some beer. No reason for that one, just thought I'd ask.

    --

  15. Re:oh, the irony... by Shihar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Your description of the Superbowl as a 'target' belies the extent to which you have swallowed hook line and sinker the philosophy of defensive fear. If "terrorists" want to do the Superbowl then they will do the Superbowl, and it will happen by some hideously clever, unexpected and audacious method that no amount of vigillance could have prevented. You and I and every other intelligent man and woman alive know this to be a truth.

    Your description of the Superbowl as a 'target' belies the extent to which you have swallowed hook line and sinker the philosophy of defensive fear. If "terrorists" want to do the Superbowl then they will do the Superbowl, and it will happen by some hideously clever, unexpected and audacious method that no amount of vigillance could have prevented. You and I and every other intelligent man and woman alive know this to be a truth.

    This same argument could be used to point to all policing as being worthless. Why bother having police when you and I both know to be truth that the criminals will find some way to avoid the police?

    It is a bullshit argument.

    There is a will out there by someone to blow something up in the Super Bowl. If you think your average Iraq insurgent who is more then willing to blow himself up in a crowd of Iraqi Shiites praying in a Mosque wouldn't think twice about blowing himself up in the middle of the Super Bowl, you are delusional. This isn't paranoia, this is a simple reality. There are those out there that would inflict harm upon US civilians (rightly or wrongly) if they had the means. The point is that they don't have the means. Simply crossing from Iraq to the US undetected with explosives enough to do damage puts this well out of the capacity of most insurgents. If there was no security set up to prevent such things, they would simply send a crate of explosives, jump in an air plane, and fly over. It isn't good morality that keeps these people from doing so. They just simply don't have the means to cross between countries armed without raising red flags.

    In order to prevent such attacks, you need to make the means of attacking as difficult as possible. Certainly you can't stop everything, but you can set the bar so high as to turn off all but the most dedicated and will organized. The means of making such an attack improbable starts at monitering the people and material that enter the nation. The final obstacle of course is Super Bowl security.

    Now, that isn't to say that there is NO means of attack, simply that the means of attack has been made exponentially harder. Instead of shipping over explosive via freight and people via airplane, loading everyone up with a suicide vest, and simply walking in, they need to devise an increasingly more complex and risky plan. They need to some how illicitly get people and materials into the nation. Once inside the nation, they need to find a method of delivery to get it past security. At each barrier erected, they need to take more extreme actions to achieve their ends. In this case, they probably would not ship explosives in as the barrier to shipping in explosives is too high, to traceable, and too risky. They might try and make a homemade bomb. For that they would need to ship in a bomb expert and potentially raise red flags buying materials. They would then need a delivery method. Simply walking in is a near impossibility, especially if they want live television coverage. They might instead opt to rent a light plain to deliver the explosives. In doing this they need to forge identities, learn to fly, load the explosives, take off without arousing suspicion, and enter restricted air space. Finally, they need to devise some method of detonation that might or might not work. Further, this attack would be less effective because of the limited amount of explosives they could deliver. If they were simply allowed to ship people from wherever they wanted and enter into the stadium as they pleased, they could merrily bring over dozens of armed people.

  16. Re:No lasers mentioned. by dr_dank · · Score: 5, Funny

    I am a holographic engineer.

    Awesome! Just like the holographic doctor from Voyager.

    Do you work if you get removed from engineering?

    --
    Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?