3-D Surveillance Technology 93
scubacuda writes "According to this Technology Review article, a new surveillance technology called Video Flashlight melds 3-D models from background scenes. This "tweening process" allows security persononnel to fly around a subject such as a pedestrian, getting a detailed look without jumping between widely separated views."
That's just flat out cool.
Re:Something about this bothers me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Something about this bothers me... (Score:2, Insightful)
There is a much bigger issue here. Digital images should not be admissible in court. Anyone with a simple image editor can add/remove things. Photographs at least have a negative that will show any tampering.
Until digital cameras "sign" every image with a unique id, a time stamp and a hash of the image don't expect the courts to accept the images as evidence. The camera should also have some way of verifying that it took the photo image and that it hasn't been altered.
Digital video would have to have every frame signed. Once you can verify that the original video sources are free of tampering then there shouldn't be any problem with showing a 3D fly through providing the court can locate the original view that contributed to some item of interest.
Cool... NOT; Scary... YES (Score:2, Insightful)
The incessant augmentation of police state powers is NOT a cool thing at all.
The way a lot of people around /. talk about these things, it's pretty clear that they don't ever expect to be the object of these new 'toys'. I find the complacent, pseudo-cool, abstract discussion of these matters to be almost as scary as this police state 'apparatus'.
Tell me people: just when do the warning bells go off in your heads (the 'crime' issue is always meant to sidetrack your critical reasoning powers, BTW)?