Surveillance Cameras Get Smarter

kog777 writes to mention that the IB Times is taking a look at where surveillance camera technology is headed. Soon researchers tell us that cameras will be available that not only record, but are able to interpret what they see. "The advancements have already been put to work. For example, cameras in Chicago and Washington can detect gunshots and alert police. Baltimore installed cameras that can play a recorded message and snap pictures of graffiti sprayers or illegal dumpers. In the commercial market, the gaming industry uses camera systems that can detect facial features, according to Bordes. Casinos use their vast banks of security cameras to hunt cheating gamblers who have been flagged before."

Comments

Re:Gunshots

[biocute]

Maybe if a mobile phone is able to simulate a realistic gunshot noise, and its owner is keen to play that in the public, police should be alerted anyway.

PLEASE someone, hook these to a traffic light.

[Mr.Scamp]

Would someone PLEASE adapt these new intelligent cameras to work with traffic lights? Cameras that can tell how much traffic is coming from each direction could move a lot more traffic. I can't count the amount of time I have wasted at red lights when there was NO traffic at all coming the other way. Intersections that can intelligently route traffic would be uber useful.

Re:resistance is futile

[Travelsonic]

I know all the scifi authors' opinions....

Surely that is sarcasm?

While we have an obligation to allow flourishing technology we also, IMO have a great obligation to make sure the technology is protected from tyrrany as well.

Re:Gunshots

[celardore]

You may be aware that the UK is ahead of everyone else in terms of CCTV surveillance. This doesn't mean that the UK has a lower crime rate though, nor does it mean that they are on top of terrorism or gun crime. There has been a lot of publicity in the UK recently about gun crime, with a famous picture in the papers of Tory leader David Cameron with a youth behind him making some kind of gang sign related to guns.

Surveillance is not the answer, it doesn't make a difference if there are too many criminals to monitor. Gun laws (as Americans will say, right to bear arms etc) are not the answer. This has lead me to believe that there is no answer. We have to be politically correct remember. Don't discriminate against trolls, they're people too.

Re:Gunshots

[inviolet]

Maybe the government shouldn't be finding new and exciting ways to do less work and employing less real people? IMHO, as soon as they start tracking us with these cameras we should start making loud gun shot noises as we shoot the lenses out.

I'd rather be watched by algorithms than by humans. Humans are woefully fallible and (worse) in denial about their own fallibility. Humans are tribalistic asshats who lose objectivity if you are different than they are -- or if you aren't different.

Of course the advantage of human surveillance is that humans are so expensive that we won't pay for enough of them to watch everyone. That fact affords me the room I need to break laws in moral ways. We'd never program the surveillance computers to grant the same leeway.

Of course that would have the further advantage of eventually getting all those stupid laws undone. The only cure for a bad law is to enforce it on everyone, as only a surveillance society could do.