I had a Solio Classic to charge GPS logger and phone while hiking for multiple days. It worked okay, good in very sunny conditions (in northern europe) and not enough to keep up on clouded days. But it was stolen and now I have a Solar Mio 31 which works better, even in clouded conditions. It manages to keep the batteries of a mobile phone and GPS logger charged in average dutch weather, back pack mounted or behind a south facing window. As I also use it at home, I haven't touched the normal chargers in a year...
As for price or "greeness", they won't repay themselves financially or impactwise. But I see part of it as gaining experience with solar cells and it is nice to see your week long treks through nowhere in google earth...
I live in Groningen and have a neighboring research interest so I might be a bit biased, but here it goes:
1. In holland all inner cities are watched over by police with camera's. These camera's are actually watched, so if the operator want to monitor you he can. This system increases the number of camera feeds a operator can handle by prioritizing the camera feeds (thus less operators, more people on the street) and he is only shown suspicious camera feeds, not the people having fun. The dutch privacy guard not only allows this system, but also encourages its development as long as the audio signal does not leave the sensor on the street (which it doesn't without proper authorization). 2. On the point of a denial of service attack, the system can make a difference between enacted aggression and real aggression. Recordings of aggression can work, but a cell phone won't produce a good enough quality sound. 3. The statistics on how much verbal aggression leads to physical aggression are interesting, but not for such a system. Police is only send to places that may become interesting, it is then at the discretion of the officer whether or not to act. 4. The operator of the system cannot listen in on any scene (sure technically it's no problem, but it is strictly forbidden by law.). In the Groningen(the city where I live) setup only with a warrant from a judge the audio from a specific incident can be retrieved. 5. The detection doesn't work on keywords or speech recognition, it works on the actual changes in the voice signal due to the loss of control over your speech production system when you are aggressive. This is also why acting doesn't work, it that case you keep control. Accents or foreign languages are no problem. 6. It won't stop some crimes like terrorist bombings, pickpocketing or other silent crimes (at least silent in their preparation), but the system is not aimed at that. And picking a fight while being mute is very, very unpractical so that probably won't happen.
The privacy checks in the system depend of course on correct implementation and correct use by the police. So these two factors should be under constant control.
Here in the Netherlands a new firm has plans to build an airships like those in the days of Graf Zeppelin. Although it won't be filled with hydrogen, the principle is exactly the same with Helium.
These guys are targeting market like survailance and communications as the ships can stay at one place a lot longer than a helicopter(about two weeks vs. a few hours) and transportation to place here no plane con land and a helcopter can't reach, like very remote oilplatfroms.
I really hope to see one flying... hopefully in 2003
If someone has to be stopped from stalking someone, he is not allowed to get near that person. So a logical(!?) thing to do when someone has to be stopped from doing something nasty with computers would be to disallow him from getting near computers. But as already said, that's tricky. So what should be done? - No internet access? - No alphanumeric keyboard access? I think number 1 is reasonable, what do you think?
Slashdot Mirror
Here you go: not exactly the HTML, but that would actually not kill the cat:
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20030427
I had a Solio Classic to charge GPS logger and phone while hiking for multiple days. It worked okay, good in very sunny conditions (in northern europe) and not enough to keep up on clouded days. But it was stolen and now I have a Solar Mio 31 which works better, even in clouded conditions. It manages to keep the batteries of a mobile phone and GPS logger charged in average dutch weather, back pack mounted or behind a south facing window. As I also use it at home, I haven't touched the normal chargers in a year...
As for price or "greeness", they won't repay themselves financially or impactwise. But I see part of it as gaining experience with solar cells and it is nice to see your week long treks through nowhere in google earth...
I live in Groningen and have a neighboring research interest so I might be a bit biased, but here it goes:
1. In holland all inner cities are watched over by police with camera's. These camera's are actually watched, so if the operator want to monitor you he can. This system increases the number of camera feeds a operator can handle by prioritizing the camera feeds (thus less operators, more people on the street) and he is only shown suspicious camera feeds, not the people having fun. The dutch privacy guard not only allows this system, but also encourages its development as long as the audio signal does not leave the sensor on the street (which it doesn't without proper authorization).
2. On the point of a denial of service attack, the system can make a difference between enacted aggression and real aggression. Recordings of aggression can work, but a cell phone won't produce a good enough quality sound.
3. The statistics on how much verbal aggression leads to physical aggression are interesting, but not for such a system. Police is only send to places that may become interesting, it is then at the discretion of the officer whether or not to act.
4. The operator of the system cannot listen in on any scene (sure technically it's no problem, but it is strictly forbidden by law.). In the Groningen(the city where I live) setup only with a warrant from a judge the audio from a specific incident can be retrieved.
5. The detection doesn't work on keywords or speech recognition, it works on the actual changes in the voice signal due to the loss of control over your speech production system when you are aggressive. This is also why acting doesn't work, it that case you keep control. Accents or foreign languages are no problem.
6. It won't stop some crimes like terrorist bombings, pickpocketing or other silent crimes (at least silent in their preparation), but the system is not aimed at that. And picking a fight while being mute is very, very unpractical so that probably won't happen.
The privacy checks in the system depend of course on correct implementation and correct use by the police. So these two factors should be under constant control.
Here in the Netherlands a new firm has plans to build an airships like those in the days of Graf Zeppelin. Although it won't be filled with hydrogen, the principle is exactly the same with Helium.
These guys are targeting market like survailance and communications as the ships can stay at one place a lot longer than a helicopter(about two weeks vs. a few hours) and transportation to place here no plane con land and a helcopter can't reach, like very remote oilplatfroms.
I really hope to see one flying... hopefully in 2003
If someone has to be stopped from stalking someone, he is not allowed to get near that person. So a logical(!?) thing to do when someone has to be stopped from doing something nasty with computers would be to disallow him from getting near computers. But as already said, that's tricky. So what should be done?
- No internet access?
- No alphanumeric keyboard access?
I think number 1 is reasonable, what do you think?
-Dirkjan