Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Asking a Machine To Spot Threats Human Eyes Miss

From Sci-Tech Today:

Mathematical algorithms embedded in the stores' new security system pick out sweethearting on their own. There's no need for a security guard watching banks of video monitors or reviewing hours of grainy footage. When the system thinks it's spotted evidence, it alerts management on a computer screen and offers up the footage.

The surveillance cameras at Big Y, a Massachusetts grocery chain, are not just passively recording customers and staff. They're studying checkout lines for signs of "sweethearting."

That's when cashiers use subtle tricks to pass free goods to friends: obscuring the bar code, slipping an item behind the scanner, passing two items at a time but charging for one.

There simply aren't enough watchful human eyes to keep it from happening. So Big Y is using technology to block it -- with implications far beyond dishonest cashiers.

Read more
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My Comment: This tech can be put anywhere .... military bases, prisons, rounding up suspected insurgents in a village. The applications can be endless.

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