Media Category Archive

A Civil Rights Swiss Army Knife in your Phone

6 Replies Jonny Hankins

Last week I wrote about Apps for driving, and this week I would like to continue the theme, but with Apps that aim to protect the user from police harassment.

The first I would like to look at is called Stop and Frisk Watch, and has been developed with the help of the non-profit organization Make The Road New York. The App is designed so that the user can record both audio and video of police interactions in the community (with the screen black so that evidence is less likely to be destroyed), is alerted when other users are doing the same in the area, and has a direct reporting system so that any interaction can be reported in real time. Just shake the phone and the video is sent directly to a lawyer. It also contains a document that outlines an individual’s rights while recording the police in action.

Filming Police Brutality

Filming Police Brutality

The App is downloadable here through the New York Civil Liberties Union website.

The groups that are advocating the use of such Apps tend to be minority groups, who believe that they are treated differently from other members of society due to their race or religion, and hope that recording the police at work might help to address this issue. If we think back a few years to the Rodney King case in LA in 1991 we can see that video technology has held a place in these types of issues for some time. We should also remember that riots were triggered in which 53 people were killed when the police were acquitted and so this is not a technology without implications for all sides. If you watch the video of the beating though you can see why the acquittal caused so much anger.

UPDATE: I just want to clarify that 2 officers were later charged with civil rights violations related to the Rodney King case mentioned in the article and found guilty and imprisoned. Also readers should be aware that the use of these Apps to film the police may not be legal in certain states, a problem that I touched upon last week regarding radar tracking equipment in cars.

Also in New York the Sikh Coalition is making an App available called FlyRights. This App allows the user to file complaints about air travel discrimination in real time and directly to the correct authorities. If a user feels they have been profiled or are being searched because they are wearing religious dress such as a turban or veil they can report discrimination on the grounds of religion or race.

There are many other Apps like this, and supporters argue that they could become the base as a new civil rights movement, after all the phone is one of the few things that most people carry everywhere they go. A Swiss army knife for civil rights right there in your pocket for some, a dangerous tool for others, once more we are in a debatable position. In many states in the US it is illegal to film the police and action is taken against those who do, so an App that allows someone to do it without being noticed may be looked upon with suspicion.

Radar and Speed Camera Apps

21 Replies Jonny Hankins

20 years ago I worked above a garage in Manchester. The owner was a young man who liked fast cars, but in Britain the roads are monitored with cameras and speed traps making it easy to lose your license through the points deduction system.

My boy racer friend had a solution however, on the rear view mirror he had a radar detection system. These systems were illegal to use, but not to own, so although visible to a passing police officer there was little they could do about it.

20 years on the technology has improved. Now for 6 euros you can download Radardroid, it sits in your smartphone and informs you when you are getting close to a speed camera or radar. This App sends a visual and sonic signal to warn you, so you can slow down and avoid fines and potentially losing your license.

To think it used to be like this!

Modern technology means less places to hide

There are many systems available. Some like Radardroid are openly helping you to avoid abiding by the law, but others market themselves as driver help tools. They let you know when there is a traffic jam ahead, bad weather or a radar by describing them all as ‘risk zones’. These systems have even been endorsed by some European governments and car manufacturing companies are starting to put the technology directly into their cars.

One problem remains however, in some countries the use of this technology is prohibited. Germany and Switzerland enforce bans on such technology, something that was easy with older systems that could be spotted from outside the car. But what about if it sits within your phone. How can a sovereign state stop people driving on their territory with an App in their phone? Will they stop cars that are factory fitted with the technology from crossing their borders?

I doubt that enforcement will be possible, and this highlights just one of the problems of the management of a single market across different sovereign countries. Technology transcends geographic boundaries, as the internet buying of banned products has proved.

And this leads me to my final question, does this mean that people only abide by the law because they think that they might get into trouble if they don’t? What are the ethical implications of the marketing and endorsing of such products? If this process continues many laws will become obsolete as technology finds ways to avoid being caught.

In Italy you have to pay to use the motorways, so you get a ticket when you enter, that you present when you leave and pay. On some motorways they have introduced what they call a tutor. It is old school technology, the ticket has the time you enter stamped on it. When you leave the time is registered again. If you cover more distance than is possible while remaining within the speed limit you get a fine. A simple A to B calculation that has dramatically cut deaths on my local motorway.

If you are interested in reading more about ethics in technological innovation take a look at my work blog.

A look into the technology used in live television

1 Reply Christopher Roberts

Around the world billions of people watched the Olympic Games last month. In this article I am going to explore the technology that is used in order to get the live action, be it aquatics, basket ball or shooting, from the event, onto our TV screens.

Live TV is a little different to recorded television. With recorded television, it has often been carefully chopped up and edited before it hits our screens. With live TV, the luxury of being able to remove mistakes isn’t there, as too much a delay would mean events were actually not live. There are a few seconds of delay between real events and what you see on your TV screen, like their is with radio, however this isn’t enough time for any extensive editing.

So imagine we are watching the men’s Olympic 100 metres final. Usain Bolt lines up along with two other Jamaicans, three Americans, a Trinidadian man and a Dutch man. The starters pistol blows and then what?

Well there is a lot more video broadcast equipment involved than you might think!

The Camera

The first part of the chain is the cameras. These capture all the events first hand. At an event like the Olympics, there will usually be tens, and sometimes hundreds of cameras, and a good broadcaster will always try to keep them out of shot of each other – so you don’t get a camera panning to a shot which features another camera in it!

The camera may be free standing, or it could be on a dolly or a jib. A camera dolly is effectively a track that the camera sits on, so that it is able to move smoothly to capture moving action. A jib is a device which has a camera on one end and a counterweight on the other. A jib allows a camera to be moved freely around an area. When you see a swooping style shot on television, that will usually have been achieved by a jib.

A camera on a track

A camera dolly

The camera will have various different wires coming out of it which will ultimately lead to a monitor. Behind the monitor will be a director who decides how and where the camera is to move to get the best shot.

The Mixing Desk

The camera will then link into a mixing desk, which in a live event like the Olympics will usually be in a really big, extremely technical looking van. Inside the van will have a number of operators choosing which of the hundreds of buttons to press, and which shot should be used – don’t forget there will be loads!

This van will control the stream of visual and audio footage that is send to TV sets across the area, country and possible the world. Sometimes the format of the stream may have to be changed. To do this a digital media streamer is usually used. To see an example of what a digital media streamer looks like, have a look at the Sencore website – under the Signal Sources tab.

Once the finalised stream is ready, a great big satellite dish on top of the van (the one with the mixing equipment inside) will transmit the stream to a satellite high up above the earth.

The Satellite

The satellite then sends the signal to all the local masts where the stream will be broadcast from. These masts are usually called television masts and are often really tall thin metal structures with a flashing red light on top – to warn passing aircraft.

Your House

The television masts are transmitting the signal far and wide, and your areal on your roof will pick up this signal. It will then pass down the wires in your house and after an exchange box reach your TV, where thanks to either LEDs, plasma, or some other means, you will see Bolt steam to victory!

If you have a satellite dish the process is slightly different as you receive the feed directly from the satellite. Also if you have a portable aerial, you bypass all the wires in your house.

So, that is how a live event reaches your TV screen, and it does all of that in less that 30 seconds. Pretty amazing don’t you think?