Yesterday's Fiction/Today's Reality

Anyone watch "NCIS"?

In that TV show investigators use technological tools that appear to be at first glance unrealistic fictional technology.

Among the technological tools at Abby's disposal is facial recognition software. When investigators hand her a surveillance photograph she runs it though a database and determines who the face belongs to.

As I posted the other day, the Pa. DMV runs your photo against a faciel recognition database. I also stated that certain cities have streets cams that are capable of doing this as well.

Anyone watch "Person Of Interest"?

The show is about a genius billionaire who has designed software capable of predicting when a crime may be committed. The show's star then sets about to find out what kind of crime and how to prevent it.

THE PLOT:"You are being watched. The government has a secret system--a machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because...I built it.

I designed the machine to detect acts of terror but it sees everything...violent crimes involving ordinary people; people like you, crimes the government considered irrelevant. They wouldn't act so I decided I would, but I needed a partner--someone with the skills to intervene.

Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You will never find us. But victim or perpetrator, if your number's up, we'll find you."If you say that it's kind of far fetched you'd be wrong!

Ever hear of DARPA?
Even if you aren't familiar with the "Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency" they may soon become aware of you.

The TV show, "Person Of Interest" could serve as a primer for what this new federal research program could end up achieving. "Assessment of Asymmetric Social Indicators" :
OBJECTIVE: Develop and implement algorithms for capturing, measuring, and assessing social interactions in military contexts (training, medical and mental health settings, security) based on asymmetric data."The program's goal is to be able to run the software on PC's, mobile phones, servers, etc.

According to Wired.com--"..the Pentagon’s way-out research arm, is looking for a way to track your abnormal activities. It will do this with voice-sensing technology and algorithms that decode your body language... automated ways to predict if a conversation will cause conflict, or lead to cooperation. "Now imagine if when this software actually is developed they decide to install it onboard a "drone aircraft" that local law enforcement can use.

No way.. too far out you say?

Well Lookie Here-- Look, Up In The Sky! It's A Drone, Looking At You

From AeroVironment, Inc.'s Website: "Qube is a rugged and reliable small Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) targeting the needs of first responders. The packaged system fits easily in the trunk of a car, and can be assembled and ready for flight in less than five minutes to provide a rapidly deployable eye in the sky, transmitting live video directly to the operator at a fraction of the cost of manned aircraft.

•Search for suspects and missing persons in a localized area
•Standoff or hostage situations
•Accident or crime-scene investigation and documentation
•Fire-fighting support, damage assessment
•Disaster and emergency response
•Explosives and bomb disposal response"Someday, in the not to distant future, drones could come equipped with the body language prediction software I was speaking of. Further equip the drone with a Wi-Fi sniffer, facial recognition, infrared cameras and you've got some pretty spooky stuff going on.

Couple that with GPS trackers on cars and phones and what you have is "NCIS" and "Person Of Interest" all wrapped up into one and coming to a neighborhood near you.

Let me thrown one more TV program at you, "Bones". In that show Angela Montenegro is a specialist in craniofacial reconstruction. She creates a 3 dimensional image of the mutilated body's face. Runs the image through facial recognition software and comes up with the identity of deceased. DNA is also collected and run through a database to confirm the identity of the victim.

Need I remind everyone that currently law enforcement does actually collect and retain DNA to add to a national database at the NCIC, which was established in Jan. of 1967. Mug shots are stored for future facial recognition as well.

This is not tin foil hat stuff.

These shows are just fictional gobblygook you say?
I reply-- Think back to "Star Trek" (1966) and it's small communicators. We call them satellite and cell phones today.

The ship's computers producing audio & visual images then projecting them to a big screen by using flash cards when inserted.

Computers responding to voice commands (like our phone calls to businesses do today).

The ship's doctor, McCoy's internal medical and brain pattern MRI images.

Lasers powerful enough to burn holes.

NONE OF THESE were around when that show was made.

Even "Star Wars" (1977) couldn't conceive of today's automated flying radar resistant drones. The "Galactic Empire" spent time and money to train pilots only to end up with them dying in battle. This film series too has become somewhat outdated because of bygone technology.

Fictional TV scenarios each. Yet here we are!

Now that this technology will shortly become available, we do trust that authorities will use this technology ethically. Right?