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BlackBerrys for coppers: UK law enforcement to smarten up in 2010

by Vladislav Savov posted Oct 16th 2009 at 9:01AM

Police men and women of Blighty are about to step into the 21st century, albeit a decade late, with a new weapon in the fight against boredom on the beat. The BBC reports that smartphones will become standard issue throughout the Queen's realm by March 2010, as a result of successful trials carried out in 30 constabularies through this year. Improved "operational efficiency" and reduced bureaucracy are argued as the key benefits, with a solid 30 minutes less time being spent in police stations each day. And we're absolutely positive that extra half hour will go toward increased "visibility in the community" and not checking out friends' Facebook status updates. No, really!

Read -- BBC report
Read -- Bedfordshire case study

Amazon clarifies Kindle book-deletion policy, can still delete books

by Nilay Patel posted Oct 1st 2009 at 2:27PM

Amazon might have been extremely contrite about remotely deleting 1984 from Kindles, but a Jeff Bezos apology and an offer to restore the book doesn't necessarily add up to a meaningful change in policy. As part of the settlement with that student who sued over the 1984 situation, Amazon's had to clarify its remote-deletion guidelines, and they're pretty much the same as ever: they'll hit the kill switch if you ask for a refund or if your credit card is declined, if a judge orders them to, or if they need to protect the Kindle or the network from malware. Sounds simple, right?

Well, sort of -- saying they'll delete content at the behest of judicial or regulatory decree pretty much leaves the door open to exactly the same situation as the 1984 debacle, just a couple procedural steps down the line and with less blame placed on Amazon. If you'll recall, 1984 was deleted after the publisher was sued for not having the proper rights, and Amazon took the proactive step of deleting the content -- and although Amazon won't do that on its own anymore, all it takes now is one strongly-worded motion before a sympathetic judge and we're back at square one. That's pretty troubling -- no judge can order a physical bookseller to come into your house and retrieve a book they've sold you, and saying things are different for the Kindle raises some interesting questions about what Amazon thinks "ownership" means. We'll see how this one plays out in practice, though -- we're hoping Amazon never has to pull that switch again.

England puts CCTVs in the homes of lousy parents

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Aug 4th 2009 at 6:52PM

We love England, especially the way they use all these adorable names for things: "lorry," for truck, or "loo" for bathroom, or "sin bin" for an Orwellian program whereby "problem families" (currently numbering 2,000, but someday as many as 20,000) are placed under 24/7 CCTV surveillance in their own homes. Chris Grayling, something called the "Shadow Home Secretary," puts it thusly: "This Government has been in power for more than a decade during which time anti-social behavior, family breakdown and problems like alcohol abuse and truancy have just got worse and worse." Meaning, of course, that cameras must be moved from the streets of England into people's homes, where they'll be used to make sure that kids go to school, go to bed at a decent hour, and eat proper meals. If only they'd had programs like this when we were kids -- maybe things would have turned out differently.

The Shack: You have questions, we have propaganda

by Ross Miller posted Aug 4th 2009 at 12:27AM

Here are some of the memorable catchphrases you can expect from the retailer formerly known as Radio Shack's rebranding, as caught on camera from an anonymous tipster: "The Shack is fluent in mobile. The Shack is a big hug for your mobile life. The Shack is music to your ears. The Shack is your path to wireless wisdom. The Shack helps you get it right. The Shack is like a GPS to your GPS. The Shack knows what you want to hear. The Shack is not camera-shy." The Shack is not at war with Eastasia. The Shack has never been at war with Eastasia.

Gallery: The Shack: You have questions, we have propaganda

Amazon remotely deletes Orwell e-books from Kindles, unpersons reportedly unhappy (update)

by Laura June posted Jul 17th 2009 at 4:20PM

If you're into keeping tabs on irony, check this out. Amazon apparently sent out its robotic droogs last night, deleting copies of the George Orwell novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four from Kindles without explanation, then refunding the purchase price. As you can imagine, a lot of people caught in the thick of Winston and Julia's love story aren't very happy -- and rightfully so -- the idea that we "own" the things we buy is pretty fundamental to... ownership. We're not sure exactly what happened, but it seems that the publisher of said novels, MobileReference, has changed its mind about selling content on the Kindle, and poof! Amazon remotely deleted all previously purchased copies. It's all a bit Orwellian, is it not? Good thing we "permanently borrowed" hard copies of both from our middle school library, huh? Let Hate Week commence.

Update: According to commenters on Amazon, this message was sent out from the company's customer service department:

The Kindle edition books Animal Farm by George Orwell. Published by MobileReference (mobi) & Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) by George Orwell. Published by MobileReference (mobi) were removed from the Kindle store and are no longer available for purchase. When this occurred, your purchases were automatically refunded. You can still locate the books in the Kindle store, but each has a status of not yet available. Although a rarity, publishers can decide to pull their content from the Kindle store.

While that publisher's version of the book may have been removed, it appears other versions of the novels are still available.

Update 2: Drew Herdener, Amazon.com's Director of Communications, pinged us directly with the following comment, and now things are starting to make a lot more sense. Seems as if the books were added initially by an outfit that didn't have the rights to the material.

These books were added to our catalog using our self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books. When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers' devices, and refunded customers. We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances.

Still, what's upsetting is the idea that something you've purchased can be quietly taken back by Amazon with no explanation and no advance notice. It's a rotten policy, regardless of the motivations behind this particular move.

India issuing biometric IDs to all 1.2 billion citizens

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Jul 16th 2009 at 1:23PM

While not busy being the destination of Westerners seeking spiritual growth and the birthplace of the beloved Bollywood song and dance flick, apparently India is home to some 1.2 billion people -- many of whom possess no proof of identification whatsoever. According to The Times (UK), less than seven per cent of the population are registered for income tax, and the voting lists are terribly inaccurate. Hoping to bring the nation's census data into the 21st century, India has created the Unique Identification Authority. Under the direction of Nandan Nilekani, one of the founders of Infosys, the plan is to outfit every one of the nation's citizens with a biometric ID card that contains personal data, fingerprint or iris scans, and possibly even criminal records and credit histories. Gathering the data is projected to cost at least $4.9 billion, a figure that's likely to soar once the ball gets rolling. While the Government expects that the first cards will be issued within 18 months, analysts say that project won't likely reach "critical mass" for at least four years.

[Via Switched]

DSS surveillance tech from Japan makes George Orwell upset

by Vladislav Savov posted Jul 5th 2009 at 1:31AM

We take a break from reporting on the impending doom of the human race to bring you news of the latest innovation designed specifically for making our pre-apocalypse lives miserable. Japanese firm DSS is now offering to snap video cameras and ankle sensors -- yes, the same kind that convicts under home arrest have to wear -- onto your employees for the ultimate in workplace surveillance. Sure, you might find out Bob in accounting takes a really long lunch, but do you really need to spend $20,000 and piss off your entire workforce to prove that? Just stalk his Tweets and Facebook status updates like a good old-fashioned employer would do.

Researchers use Bluetooth to track festival goers, make fun of their 'hippie dancing'

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Jul 4th 2009 at 4:04AM

A team from the University of Ghent in Belgium is lacing the site of this year's Rock Werchter festival -- Brussel's equivalent of Woodstock '97 -- with Bluetooth scanners (36 total, they cover a range of 30 meters each). While you're rocking out to the likes of Bloc Party and Mastodon, the researchers will be tracking your every movement, whether it be to the mosh pit, the beer tent, or the Job Johnny. As you've probably assumed, the researchers are primarily looking for ways that retailers can monitor customer flow (read: sell you more crap) although there are certainly going to be results applicable to the world of law enforcement. Of course, this is Bluetooth: you always have the option of disabling it on your phone, and if you don't they'll only be able to discern your MAC address. Besides, if you're not doing anything illegal, you have nothing to fear from the surveillance state -- right? And if you are up to no good, well, that's why they invented the Dazer Lazer.

Video: UK Home Secretary delays 1984 by a few years

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Apr 27th 2009 at 10:06PM

The UK Home Secretary (whatever that is) has put the kibosh on plans for a giant government database that would track all of the country's emails, phone calls and internet activity. But not so fast, civil libertarians! According to the Telegraph, the onus will merely shift to the private sector -- with telecoms and Internet providers being required to retain the data, at a cost of around £2 billion (over $2.9 billion US). According to the plan, every Internet user will be given a unique ID code that the government can use to access the data in the event of a threat -- whether terrorist, criminal, or extraterrestrial. It just goes to show you how lucky Britons are to have a government that cares so much about their well being. Video after the break.

Continue reading Video: UK Home Secretary delays 1984 by a few years

Space Observer to innocently watch you at San Jose's airport

by Darren Murph posted Apr 20th 2009 at 7:08AM

It's every child's dream to one day walk through a trio of space robot legs as entering Silicon Valley, and if a proposed art project goes through, said dream will become a reality for budding tech superstars who land in Mineta San Jose International Airport. The $300,000 initiative would see a so-called Space Observer built and showcased prominently in the venue, allowing patrons to walk underneath its two-story-tall body and emit all sorts of "oohs" and "ahhs." The monolithic space robot would sport three legs and propeller-tipped kinetic camera arms, the latter of which would collect live video to be displayed on embedded monitors within its body. San Jose Public Art Director Barbara Goldstein has already stated that "it won't follow you anywhere," but it's not like she really has the power to control what this obviously sentient creature does / doesn't do.

Gaze tracking system keeps an eye on CCTV operators as they keep an eye on you

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Apr 14th 2009 at 11:53AM

In his analysis of control systems, William S. Burroughs once noted that as they become larger, so do the opportunities for evasion increase. Sure, you can have CCTV cameras at (nearly) every intersection in your sleepy village, but someone has to watch all those things. What do you do when the sheer number of displays becomes too much for our poor Big Brother? Researchers at the Gebze Institute of Technology in Turkey have developed a gaze tracking system that trains cameras on the irises of the CCTV operator -- noting which video sequences he or she views on the shift, and producing a summary of video sequences they've overlooked. If that weren't enough, the system uses an algorithm that discards frames with no people or moving vehicles in them, leaving only a few key frames for each scene of interest. According to New Scientist, this all runs on a standard PC and processes and catalogs images in real time. Now, if only there were a system that let us watch Two And A Half Men and Becker at the same time -- that would be sweet.

UK college begins testing facial recognition attendance system

by Darren Murph posted Mar 6th 2009 at 10:41AM

It's something we never really appreciated when waltzing into class way back when, but the ability to show up at your leisure without having to "clock in" and "clock out" was awesome. If you agree, you'll probably want to shred that application for City of Ely Community College in the UK, which has become one of the first UK schools to trial a new facial recognition technology from Aurora. Officials suggest that knowing who is on campus at any given time helps them in case of emergency, as they can easily see if they've collected everyone into a safe area; being the Big Brother haters that we are, we tend to see things a bit differently. And besides, who really wants to show up two minutes early to class to have some machine look at your groggy, tattered up face? Have a look in the read link for a quick video of what you are (or are not, we suppose) missing.

[Via Slashdot]

Darpa develops a 1.8 gigapixel digicam and no, you can't 'check it out'

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Feb 13th 2009 at 10:48AM

Yeah, I know you thought your Hello Kitty digicam was some hot stuff, but believe it or not the kids at Darpa have even got that one beat. Called ARGUS-IS (both named after the mythological eye guy and an acronym for Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance - Imaging System) this guy straps a 1.8 gigapixel camera to the bottom of an A-160T Hummingbird robot helicopter. The device is able to hover at high altitude (over 15,000 feet) for up to 20 hours -- keeping tabs of an area of over a hundred square miles. The frame rate is 15 fps and the "ground sample distance" is 15 centimeters -- each pixel represents about six inches. The sheer amount of data taken in by a camera like this is too large to be completely relayed to the ground, but users are able to define upwards of sixty-five independent video windows within the image and zoom in or out. Additionally, windows can be set to automatically track items such as moving vehicles, individuals, the books you get out of the library, and the items you pick up at 7-11 after a night out with the gang.

Laptops can be confiscated and searched at US border without cause says report

by Joshua Topolsky posted Aug 1st 2008 at 11:01AM

In further evidence of our rapidly eroding civil liberties, the Department of Homeland Security disclosed today that US Customs and Border Protection and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement have the right to confiscate and search a traveler's laptop or other electronic device without any suspicion of wrongdoing. The rules -- which we reported on in February -- allow for searches of hard drives, flash drives, cellphones, iPods, pagers, and video or audio tapes, and specify that the agencies can "detain" belongings for a "reasonable period of time," (i.e., as long as they please). Additionally, the DHS can share the data found with other government agencies or private entities for translation, decryption, or (astoundingly vague) "other reasons." The DHS says the policies apply to anyone entering the country -- including US citizens -- and claim the measures are necessary to prevent terrorism. In other news, Big Brother issued a statement today guaranteeing a bonus for turning over family members suspected of crimethink to the Thought Police.

[Via Switched]

Russia wants all WiFi devices to be registered

by Darren Murph posted Apr 15th 2008 at 11:20PM

Sure, we've seen the occasional loony look down upon open WiFi access, but Russia is apparently out to really slow down wireless adoption with its latest directive. Reportedly, the Russian Mass Media, Communications and Cultural Protection Service (or Rossvyazokhrankultura for short -- no seriously, we swear) is looking to have every user of a WiFi-enabled device obtain permission and register said device before hopping on the world wide web. Even worse, it seems as if every single wireless transmitter and device must be registered, meaning that technophiles will be filling out heaps of paperwork in order to get their handset, laptop, DS Lite, PC and hacked-up Foleo online (legally) via their home-based access point. We're hearing that registering a single PDA or phone would take around ten days, while signing up a new home network would be even more painstaking. We'll spare you the snide In Soviet Russia... remarks, but feel free to concoct your own below.

[Via Wi-Fi Net News]