Nexus - 0602 - New Times Magazine-pages

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... GLOBAL NEWS ... NEWS SMART SURVEILLANCE - 1 ritish police scientists are close to a breakthrough that will allow CCTV cameras to 'recognise' criminal activity. The technologies utilise leading-edge neur- al and pattern recognition systems devel- oped for space and defence applications. Dr Mike Taylor, head of Scotland Yard's technology operations, announced at a recent London conference that it is "per- fectly feasible to develop software which can distinguish certain actions", such as the sound of breaking glass, but that the main barrier to date has been overcoming the problems with image quality. Automatic policing of entire areas could soon become a reality with these advanced CCTV systems. (Source: Weekly Telegraph, 9-15 Dec 1998) IMPLANTS ALLOW HUMANS TO CONTROL COMPUTERS n American scientist has entered the world of science fiction by implanting electrodes in the brains of disabled people so that they can control a computer by the power of thought. The implants have enabled two paralysed people to move the cursor on the screen simply by thinking about moving part of their body. They were able to convey mes- sages such as "I'm thirsty" or "Please turn off the light" by pointing the cursor at dif- ferent icons. The hope is that eventually patients will be able to communicate complex ideas just by thinking about them. "If you can run a computer, you can talk to the world," said Dr Ray Bakay, of Emory University in Atlanta, whose team developed the implants. British Telecom Laboratories near Ipswich, UK, have also done research into implantable chips, including a memory chip which could take data from the eye and store it for a computer. (Sources: New Scientist, 17 October 1998; The Times, London, www.the-times.co.uk) walking the fine line of alerting business and industry to the situation, whilst simul- taneously not panicking the public. The last thing they want is a run on the banks and panic-buying of essential commodities. An interesting situation... Meanwhile the Gartner Group, a respect- ed consulting company based in Stamford, Connecticut, released a report in late September 1998 with the following break- down (pardon the pun) of computer failure- rate predictions: 1) By country «Level 1 (15%): Australia, Belgium, Bermuda, Canada, Denmark, Holland, Treland, Israel, Switzerland, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States; ¢ Level 2 (33%): Brazil, Chile, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan; ¢ Level 3 (50%): Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Bulgaria, Colombia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Germany, Guatemala, India, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Malaysia, North Korea, Poland, Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Yugoslavia; * Level 4 (66%): Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Chad, China, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Fiji, Indonesia, Kenya, Laos, Lithuania, Morocco, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania, Russia, Somalia, Sudan, Thailand, Uruguay, Vietnam, Zaire, Zimbabwe. 2) By industry * Level 1 (15%): banking, computer manufacturing, insurance, investment ser- vices, pharmaceuticals; * Level 2 (33%): aerospace, biotechnol- ogy, consulting, discrete manufacturing, heavy equipment, medical equipment, retail, publishing, semiconductors, soft- ware, telecoms; ¢ Level 3 (50%): chemical processing, construction, gas, hospitality, law enforce- ment, law practices, medical practices, nat- ural gas, ocean shipping, oil, power, pulp and paper, television, transportation, water; * Level 4 (66%): agriculture/farming, education, food processing, government agencies, health care, municipal services. Overall, Gartner believes that the Year 2000 problem won't cause the global busi- ness meltdown that some analysts had ear- lier predicted, but it will cause a negative impact on the world economy that will be SMART SURVEILLANCE - 2 Reawees in California have created an Autonomous Observer (AO) robot that could be developed into a surveillance system that follows a target wherever it goes. Currently, other systems can't follow moving objects that are trying to evade detection; if an object disappears from view, the tracking system loses it. To overcome this, computer scientist Jean-Claude Latombe at Stanford University has developed small mobile robots that not only watch targets but also work out their potential escape routes. The robots can then position themselves for an optimum view. (Source: New Scientist, 17 October 1998) THE YEAR 2000 PROBLEM hile predictions vary enormously on the effects of the "millennium bug" (see NEXUS 5/05), we can be sure that there will be widespread awareness of the situation. Indeed, it may be that very ‘awareness’ that becomes our downfall. Western governments find themselves SORRY, MARtors, GUESS 3 GOT cAkRiED AWAY WITH MYSELF ee ee 8 - NEXUS FEBRUARY — MARCH 1999