Auto Traffic Light Recognition And Its Surveillance Uses -Tech Tuesday

Auto Traffic Light Recognition

Audi is adding something very useful to their vehicle that adds to safety, fuel savings and even time. Audi is testing a new system that syncs up with a city’s central traffic computer which allows the vehicle to anticipate traffic signals.

So if you are waiting at a light the system within the vehicle will have a countdown until the light turns green. And if you are approaching an intersection it will give you information as to whether you will either make the light or give you chance to anticipate the red light and prepare to stop well in advance.

Investigator Purposes for Traffic Light Recognition

I can’t tell you how many times a subject has made it through a traffic light and I am freaking out because I am at the longest light in the world. If I see that the light is 1 minute and 30 seconds long then I might try to take a different route (one that I share in my surveillance videos) to make sure I don’t lose more ground than I have to during a surveillance.

It might also allow investigators to determine the amount of distance they need to have between an subject based on what the next traffic light is going to do. There are general rules for investigators and traffic signals, however knowing what a light will do ahead of time might be another positive piece of information that investigator can use when following someone.

For the original article click here.

Phone Metadata Gives Away the Secrets

Not that I am a tech geek that pulls information or takes snapshots of data from cell phones and computers, but I am pretty sure investigators are already doing this type of stuff.

With that being said, a study by Johathan Mayer and Patrick Mutchler from Stanford found that metadata tells quite a bit about a person. These two guys probed data from 546 volunteers and found out some pretty neat stuff.

What they found is that just by seeing who each person is calling, they can essentially paint a picture of the person. They gave an example of one person making an early morning call to her sister and then two days later numerous calls to a local Planned Parenthood location. Then a couple more calls to Planned Parenthood with a final call one month later. Anyone with half a brain can make an assumption as to what was happening in the life of this person and would likely be correct.

As investigators we build profiles of individuals we conduct surveillance on which helps us in the course of an investigation. I know there is software out there that can grab metadata and according to this article they used a special app to grab the data.

For the original article click here.

Google Drive-Drives Down Prices for Cloud Storage

This week Google dropped the price of one terabyte of online storage to $9.99 a month. If you want some perspective on the competition below is some competitor storage and prices:

Dropbox – 100GB- $9.99 a month
SugarSync (whoever they are) 1 terabyte – $55 a month
Apple – 50GB – $100 a year
Microsoft OneDrive -50GB for $25 a year (Google offers $1.99 a month for 100 GB)

Google Drive isn’t just about storage. They have productivity apps that operate within Google Drive, photos are stored and shared within Google Drive and apparently Gmail comes from the same storage pool as well.

I like Google Drive because it’s a place where my brother and I could work on a document at the same time. We used to for show notes and topics. Investigation companies can work on ideas within a company while sharing a document at the same time or whatever else you can think up. Don’t let me hold you back.

Source

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