April 25, 2007
Wired 15.04: Shot Spotter
From Wired 15.04: Shot Spotter:
A great article on the shot spotter technology (gunshot detection system). It covers how the system works, the history of the technology, and how it is currently being deployed. Its a nice long article with lots of detail. Here are some snippets:
In October, the department spent $350,000 to install 84 ShotSpotter sensors on rooftops, utility poles, and other inconspicuous places over 6 square miles of urban blight. Since then, dispatchers have received roughly a dozen automatic alerts every day, each one an opportunity to get officers to the scene of a shooting while the gun is still smoking. [Oakland, CA]
"In the past, the best information the police could hope for was a neighbor calling to say, ‘Sorry to bother you, but there may have been a shooting somewhere in my neighborhood,'" says ShotSpotter CEO James Beldock. "Our system can immediately tell them that, say, 11 rounds were fired from a car going 9 miles an hour, northbound, in front of a specific address on Main Street. In some situations, ShotSpotter could get someone on the scene within a minute. That's a level of situational knowledge police have never had."
This kind of coverage requires an array of 12 to 20 specialized sensors per square mile. Roughly the size of a medium pizza and designed to look like a rooftop fan, each sensor contains up to four small microphones. If one of these units detects a loud noise, it forwards a recording to a server at police headquarters along with three pieces of information: location, time, and general direction the sound came from. If a sound is detected by only one sensor, it's probably too quiet to be gunfire, and in any case, the system needs data from three sensors to pinpoint the location of a noise. If several sensors report an event at the same time, the server gets to work. First, the software performs an analysis to categorize the noise as gunfire, firecrackers, bottle rockets, helicopters, or other. If it determines the event was a gunshot, the program makes a simple calculation to triangulate the sound's origin to within 80 feet or less.
The upgrade caught on fast. Chicago, Gary, and Washington, DC, bought systems in 2005 and 2006. . . . Meanwhile, ShotSpotter expanded from the mean streets of the US to the blast zones in Iraq. In 2006, the Army deployed a specialized battlefield version. The user interface is mobile, and so are the sensors themselves; soldiers carry units roughly the size of a Tom Clancy paperback. The sensors pinpoint enemy fire while a camera on an unmanned Boeing scan Eagle aircraft overhead targets the threat.
The improved sensor arrays deployed in US cities show even more promising results. Two days after Rochester, New York, activated 6 square miles in July 2006, local police arrived on the scene of a shooting in time to make an arrest. Since then, the array has been solely responsible for roughly one gun-related arrest per month.
The 2-square-mile grid in Gary recorded 10 to 15 incidents a day when it was installed in 2005. Police used the system to confiscate 45 illegal weapons on New Year's Eve of that year, and shooters began to think twice. Now the system picks up one or two hits a day.
Posted by rshah at 11:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 17, 2007
Intelligent Assistive Technology and Systems Lab (IATSL)
IATSL - Intelligent Assistive Technology and Systems Lab:
Smart camera systems are typically focused on security applications. However, there are lots of other applications these systems can be used for. IATSL is a university laboratory that has applied smart camera technology to issues around accessibility and disability. Two simple examples:
Alex Mihailidis has worked on a smart camera setup that provides voice prompts for people washing their hands (link to Efficacy of Visual Prompting Among Older Adults with Dementia). This is needed, because people with dementia often have difficulty doing simple tasks such as handwashing.
A smart camera setup is used to watch stairs and automatically detect any anomalous (unsafe) events that may occur. This system is useful "to help further the understanding of the causes and catalysts of injuries on stairs and prevent accidents on stairs. Furthermore, such a system can help promote independence for older adults as their inability to safely traverse stairs greatly impedes their ability to live independently at home." (link to Automated detection of anomalous events on stairs)
Posted by rshah at 09:37 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Update on ANPR in San Franscisco
From Examiner.com:
An update on an earlier story about the use of ANPR in San Francisco. The city states that with ANPR they have gone from finding 250 people to 350 people every two weeks with unpaid parking fines. Additionally, in one month they found 38 stolen cars, which was something they hadn't done before. The technology is in four parking enforcement vans. They seem happy with the system and are considering expanding to determine if people have residential parking permits. This is another good example of how ANPR is being used.
Posted by rshah at 09:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 07, 2007
Improving Efficiency with Smart Camers
From Informationweek:
Smart cameras being used in retail setting to improve operational efficiency, merchandising, and market research. The article focuses on the use of IBM's Smart Surveillance system by Pathmark supermarkets.
For example, it might provide better data on what percentage of shoppers make purchases and why the rate differs by store. Analyzing how customers move through stores might also let Pathmark tailor the layout based on traffic and place promotion material better.
Its pretty thin on details, but another example of how smart cameras are beginning to be considered for applications outside security.
Posted by rshah at 02:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 06, 2007
Talking Cameras
The UK is going to start adding loudspeakers to some cameras to tell people to stop littering or other anti-social behavior. The BBC has a clip of the system in action, where people who leave behind litter are asked to please pick up the litter. This is slightly different than other talking camera systems, because this system relies on a live camera operator.
There are several issues this technology raises. The first is how intrusive do we want government/camera systems to be? Do we want them to shout instructions to us? Does it matter this is for littering or should it be extended to other more dangerous situations, such as assaults? The second is how effective this system will be. This strikes me more as a novelty than as something that will have lasting consequences. Along these lines, an issue raised by Spy Blog is the vast difference between the optical power of a camera and the audible range of a loudspeaker. Loudspeakers can't zoom and pan like cameras, so the audible instructions may be difficult to hear or confuse other third parties.
Posted by rshah at 03:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack