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Tag Archive for surveillance

Ambient Energy

June 8, 2015 future, Writing Comments Off on Ambient Energy

 

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/538031/first-demonstration-of-a-surveillance-camera-powered-by-ordinary-wi-fi-broadcasts/

Electronics bleed.  I mean, if energy serves as the lifeblood of any bit of tech, then I think we can make that metaphor work, right?  There is energy all around us, there is the solar energy that gets dumped on our planet by the tanker-load every minute of every day, there is the lost energy in the form of heat that bleeds from our car engines as they sit, cooling with no more than an occasional crackle or ping, in our garages at night.  There is the extra kinetic energy lost when your fingers mis-type letters on a keyboard, or when you idly spin your office chair around in circles.

As we move forward, we are going to need to think differently about recapturing energy, there are going to be a host of inventions, big and small, that will help us to achieve even greater levels of efficiency.

Big brother has always been there….

October 10, 2014 People, Writing Comments Off on Big brother has always been there….

 

I was staring at the security camera in the parking lot the other day.  Like you do.  They’re nowhere near as interesting as they make them out to be in TV/Books/Videogames.  In fact, the only reason I noticed it is because I was on a phone call and I was *looking* for something boring to point my eyeballs at while I focused on the conversation at hand.

When I was little we used to play “spot the camera” at the big marketplace.  They were new, and the images were displayed prominently for anyone to see while they were checking out, so we used to go mug for the camera in the very corners of the store.

Outside of the store, there was always an adult with their eyes on us.  This was back when you could still call out other peoples children for being jerks, so it seemed that everybody old enough to drive was poised to deliver a loudly vocalized opinion on what I was doing at any given moment (here’s a hint, I’m really rather boring, so I never have been able to figure out why people complain so much).

In Church on the weekends, we were solemnly advised that God was ALWAYS watching.  ALWAYS. Same thing with Santa, but Santa could at least be bribed and had a memory of about 6 weeks.

So it occurs to me that, maybe the reason that there is no hue and cry about mass surveillance, that nobody is kicking up a fuss (at least not to levels expected) about being watched on cameras 24/7, or the NSA reading our emails, or that the idea of pre-crime seems to be utterly banal.  There’s a perfectly good reason for that.  It’s because we have always been watched.  By a parent, but other parents, by your deity of choice, by Santa, by your teachers, by your boss. We have been raised with the societal understanding that no matter what we do, somebody is always watching.  So now that somebody ACTUALLY is, it’s an utter non-event.

Below is the link that ran me off into this train of thought.

MOBILE DATA AS PRE-CRIME INDICATOR