Are We Becoming Too Accustomed to Big Brother Watching US?
Engineers at Ohio State University developed a computerized surveillance system that will recognize whether a person on the street is acting suspiciously or appears to be lost.
Intelligent video cameras, large video screens, and geo-referencing software are among the technologies that are available to law enforcement and security agencies
In the recent Proceedings of the 2008 IEEE Conference on Advanced Video and Signal Based Surveillance, James W. Davis and doctoral student Karthik Sankaranarayanan report that they’ve completed the first three phases of the project: they have one software algorithm that creates a wide-angle video panorama of a street scene, another that maps the panorama onto a high-resolution aerial image of the scene, and a method for actively tracking a selected target.
The ultimate goal is a networked system of “smart” video cameras that will let surveillance officers observe a wide area quickly and efficiently. Computers will carry much of the workload.