Cameras, Cameras, Everywhere!
Chris Hind (chind@juno.com)
Mon, 09 Dec 1996 14:34:34 -0800
Recently I was in Newport Beach when I noticed cameras placed on the top of
mini-malls that sense and focus in on rapid movement. It kinda freaked me
out because I'm not used to motion tracking cameras, but I wondered if
having cameras everywhere owned by private industry is really such a bad
thing? Cameras in the home is definately a no-no but in public areas it
could be acceptable and even prove that someone didn't commit a crime such
as murder. It's much better than all the cameras being controlled by the
gov't. Could adding cameras everywhere decrease the amount of crime in a
given area if people knew they were being watched constantly in public
places? No single person will have power over all the cameras and therefore
it is safer because many different shops and stores would own them and keep
them in working order. You could possibly even hook them up to the net
eventually and allow people to spot crimes themselves when the shop owners
are turned away from the moniters helping customers. Also with the advent
of augmented reality in a design where you would wear glasses with a camera
that would redisplay the incoming image on 2 tiny screens to allow for
multi-spectral vision, your point of view could jump from person to person.
Imagine watching a football game where your point of view would jump to the
person closest to the action. Or better yet have a camcorder where whatever
you see, the camcorder will record in stereoscopic through your eyes
allowing visual/audio recordings of memories like in the movie "Strange Days".