Posted on 11/29/2004 4:04:44 PM PST by Tarpaulin
TORONTO (Reuters) - New Internet-based technology could soon turn regular computer users into armchair spies, a Canadian inventor said on Monday.
Vincent Tao, an engineer at Toronto's York University said he has invented a mapping and surveillance tool called SAME (see anywhere, map anywhere), that produces images so sharp that geographic co-ordinates typed into a Web site can reveal the make of a car parked on the street.
Tao said SAME works by taking satellite images of the Earth and combining them with real-time remote sensors that monitor traffic and weather.
The information is reformatted on a searchable Web site that can capture ground-level images of the Earth with little or no time delay.
The resolution is 2 feet -- fine enough to determine the make of a car, though not the details of a human face, according to Tao.
"This is real-time streaming technology. It's like (the online directory) MapQuest or the navigation system in your car, but three-dimensional," he said in an interview on Monday.
"You'll see a globe, like a virtual Earth, and then you can fly in from outer space and zoom all the way in to a city and even to street level, which will be updated by very nice, high-resolution imagery."
Tao said the potential applications are broad, including defense, emergency response and environmental monitoring. He added that the technology could become widely available as early as next year.
"Our business model is looking at how to make this publicly available."
But the technology also poses concerns, said Veera Rastogi, a lawyer specializing in privacy issues with the Canadian law firm Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP.
"Any surveillance-based technology like this gives rise to the potential for abuse," she said.
"Right now it's a tool used by the Red Cross and defense, but, down the road, in whose hands would this technology fall and for what purpose? Bottom line is, it's a case where, these days, the technology seems to be outrunning the law," Rastogi said.
Cindy Cowan, the director of a Toronto shelter for battered women, echoed Rastogi's concerns, saying the technology could put women at greater risk of abuse.
"Already the Internet has become a place where women are stalked, so to give another tool to abusive men motivated to find and track and stalk -- it frightens me," she said.
""Already the Internet has become a place where women are stalked, so to give another tool to abusive men motivated to find and track and stalk -- it frightens me," she said."
Yeah, well you frighten me too, baby!!
Reuters just had to put in their obligatory doom and gloom paragraph that only insanely has anything to do with the subject of the article.
Of course, the reverse is true: Stalked women can avoid their abusive men!
The article may have been more interesting if everything after the word "available" were deleted.
WOW!!! This will replace tiny mirrors on shoe tips !!
"Vincent Tao, an engineer at Toronto's York University said he has invented a mapping and surveillance tool called SAME (see anywhere, map anywhere), "
If the brackets are referring to the name, shouldn't it be called SAMA ??
Why don't men ever get stalked by sex crazed maniacal women ?
So why couldn't we get just one tiny example?
We do!
Exactly! :)
Indubitubly.
How about psychotic ex-girlfriends or wifes.
Insanity is an equal opportunity employer.
oops wifes- WIVES.
Los Angeles Times Headline Nov.30 2004
God Ends World Tomorrow!
Women and Minorities Hardest Hit!
If the brackets are referring to the name, shouldn't it be called SAMA ??
It's actually Operation: See Anywhere, Map Anywhere.
OSAMA.
"OSAMA."
If you put it in that context it may be very useful for a Search And Destroy mission!
I had a psycho ex girlfriend who stalked me about 20 years ago. I'm sure I am not alone.
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