[Freddy]

Found this story on Yahoo today, quite an interesting development - a new security system being used in the US and now in the UK too.  Could get scary...

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20081127/tuk-sci-fi-film-cctv-predicts-crime-45dbed5.html

 

[Maviarab]

Interesting stuff dude, good find. Interesting to read its already in a few American city's too

The future is now it would appear...or almost

[Art]

I wonder when they will convert auto license plates to large BARCODES in order to be laser scanned
if the camera catches one speeding?

[Freddy]

They may not need to Art, I believe OCR (Optical Character Recognition) like we use on our desktops is already being used to identify car number plates...

[wgb14]

The minority report is here, but unfortunately it doesn't work properly. Visit this site http://www.camspace.com/ and download the software. It allows you to control the pc (both keyboard and mouse) using virtually any physical object with a bright colour. Although it is an amazing technology in my case it doesn't work for more than 1 hour. I tried it on two computers (Windows XP SP3 and Vista SP1) and the problem remains the same. The software accurately tracks two pieces of paper on my thump and index (green and blue) and moves the cursor around but for no more than 1 hour. Then although tracking remains accurate, the cursor stops and refuses to respond. Would someone be interested to try it and let me the result?       

[Art]

Freddy,

That might be possible but a lot of states here in the US employ a variety of font styles and colors on their license plates.
The OCR would need to detect the variations. Most plates here use 3 letters then 3 numbers although there are some vanity plates that allow a person to have a word or cute phrase on their plate, like WAYCOOL or CUTE-E etc.. I suppose it wouldn't really matter since all plates are registered and in the 'system'. Simply a matter of time.

Do you think the powers that be will ever suffer from Information Overload? You know...where they simply have more information than they can manage or know what to do with? Statistics...statistics...it's almost pityful, especially during sports games when the announcers broadcast their "vast" amount of knowledge about this team or this player, all the while being fed the info from a computer / printout. Kind of ridiculous and amusing!

[Freddy]

Yes I agree that could cause the machines to get confused.  There are a lot of number plates like that in the UK too, but a lot of them are actually illegal - doesn't seem to stop people using them 'till they get caught though.  I think it would be the font styles that cause confusion more than the colours used because colours can be changed in an image.

As for overload of information then yes it's hard to see how it could be run effectively.  It would be like chiseling away at a mountain.

This came up in the news feeds in the past few days:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7805610.stm

wgb14, I had a look at the video of camspace and thought it was remarkable.  We can turn our PC's into a Wii.  I had thought about buying a Wii actually but haven't taken the plunge, maybe I will give this a go instead.  It's in my bookmarks.

[wgb14]

Yes the software is amazing but still very problematic. If you have the time to test it please let me know the outcome. As for the Wii i tried that too (as a mouse cursor) and it is working far better. The only thing that you have to be carefull is the sensor bar though. If it is not strong enough there is no way for the wii to move the cursor accurately. I have already tried two sensor bars for the market and the results are dissapopinting. When I will have the time I will make a seperate post in the forum

[Dante]

OCR for number plates was first tested around 1987. They are now standerd items in all police cars in the UK.

The smart CCTV system can identify an action, such as being attacked or being unconscious. A prototype system is also being tested with the UK's new CCTV speaker system to enable an AI to question attackers, and the general public can also gain the cameras attention and ask for an emergency service though it.

Yes, it's finally happened, our beloved machines are watching us. Fun!