SmartMobs.com has an interesting post with links to a 22 minute BBC video that discusses how pictures and video images taken by everyday citizens with cell phone cameras is changing the way news is covered and news content is created. As we have stated before on this blog, networked technology has turned everyday citizens into journalists, investigators, skip tracers, spies, national security observers and, yes, even “Little Brothers”.

You can read the SmartMobs.com post and watch the video footage @ BBC: How mobiles changed the face of news.

RFID ( Radio Frequency Identification ) is the latest small-scale tracking technology that can be used to track and locate objects or people. Pay attention to this new technology and its increasing applications.

Here is a concise description of RFID from Wikipedia –

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an automatic identification method, relying on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags or transponders. An RFID tag is a small object that can be attached to or incorporated into a product, animal, or person. RFID tags contain silicon chips and antennas to enable them to receive and respond to radio-frequency queries from an RFID transceiver. Passive tags require no internal power source, whereas active tags require a power source.

It’s a new year and the Department of Defense has released news on a new gadget that will sense people and movement through concrete walls. The new “radar scope” will detect movements as simple as breathing through 12 inches of concrete.

From the release —

Troops conducting urban operations soon will have the capabilities of superheroes, being able to sense through 12 inches of concrete to determine if someone is inside a building.

Click photo for screen-resolution image
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency expects the portable Radar Scope to look similar to this model and to be fielded as soon as this spring to help patrols conducting urban operations to sense if someone is inside a building. Photo by Donna Miles (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.
The new “Radar Scope” will give warfighters searching a building the ability to tell within seconds if someone is in the next room, Edward Baranoski from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Special Projects Office, told the American Forces Press Service.

By simply holding the portable, handheld device up to a wall, users will be able to detect movements as small as breathing, he said.

The Radar Scope, developed by DARPA, is expected to be fielded to troops in Iraq as soon as this spring, Baranoski said. The device is likely to be fielded to the squad level, for use by troops going door to door in search of terrorists.

You can read the entire article @ New Device Will Sense Through Concrete Walls

As we have said before on this blog, it is just a matter of time before digital cameras automatically label pictures with location and personal information.

According to an article in newscientist.com, Yahoo’s Berkeley research lab is using Bluetooth-enabled cell phone cameras along with facial recognition software to automatically label pictures with location and people identification information. So far the system is 60% accurate at identifying people in pictures from a short list of possible individuals.

From the article –

The concept, being developed by Marc Davis of Yahoo’s Berkeley research lab in California, is based on a central server that registers details sent by the phone when the photo is taken. These include the nearest cellphone mast, the strength of the call signal and the time the photo was taken.

The system also identifies the other Bluetooth-enabled cellphones within range of the photographer and combines this with the time and place information to create a shortlist of people who might be in the picture. This can then be combined with facial-recognition algorithms to identify the subjects from the shortlist.

Facial recognition software on its own can only identify people with 43 per cent accuracy from the grainy shots taken by camera phones, but in tests Davis and his team found that by combining it with context information the system could correctly identify people 60 per cent of the time. The context information can also be combined with image-recognition software to identify places within photos.

The entire article is available on newscientist.com @ Camera phone helps label snaps

The Daily Yomiuri Online is reporting on the testing of a new emergency broadcast system in Japan that would automatically turn on cell phones and alert users to major earthquakes and other natural disasters.

The article reads –

The Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry plans to develop a new emergency-broadcast system capable of automatically turning on cell phones so it can send a warning alarm and information to them in case of a major earthquake or other natural disaster.

The ministry is planning to start testing the system, which uses a digital terrestrial television broadcasting signal, before March 31, and it hopes to be able to put it into practice within a few years, a ministry official said.

The system would allow cell phone users to receive useful data, including information about disasters, and evacuation instructions and routes. The ministry believes text messages would help people evacuate a disaster area safely and, in doing so, prevent a disaster situation from worsening.

The ministry plans to test the system in Sapporo in April 2006, piggybacking a new broadcasting system, called One Seg, that is being set up to enable television programs to be played on cell phones.

The new system will enable the ministry to send an emergency-broadcast signal to specially designed cell phones capable of being switched on remotely.

Google has released a beta version of their popular online email service Gmail for web-enabled cell phones, mobile and wireless devices.

You can read more about Gmail for cell phones and mobile devices along with a set of frequently asked questions at Gmail Mobile.

Erin Bradley at searchviews.com has posted an interesting article on a new service that allows people to send self-destructing text messages.

The service, offered by Staellium UK, is called StealthText and it allows users to send text messages from their mobile phones and wireless devices that self-destruct 40 seconds after being opened.

From the post and article -

“History is littered with tales of messages that should have been destroyed…According to Carole Barnum, CEO and cofounder of Staellium UK, StealthText users can breathe a sigh of relief 40 seconds after sending a message. ‘The ability to send a self-destruct message has massive benefits for people from all walks of life, from everyday mobile users to celebrities and business people,’ Barnum said.

You can read the entire post and linked article at SMS as Spy Tool – StealthText

Think about this one. Here is a people search idea that is both possible and probable. Add up the following existing and possible technologies and see what you get.

1. GPS cell phones that can pinpoint a person’s exact location. ( exists )

2. Mobile digital cameras on cell phones that can be used to capture images of anyone, anywhere at anytime. ( exists )

3. Date and time stamps encoded onto digital photographs. ( exists )

4. Photo sharing sites, like Flickr, and social networking sites, like Friendster, that allow people to freely upload digital pictures and publish them on the web. ( exists )

5. Online tagging technology, like del.icio.us, that allows people to “tag” web pages and images with relevant keywords, including people names, locations and other descriptive words for better searching. ( exists )

6. Facial recognition software like Riya that can recognize facial features of people in digital pictures. ( exists )

7. Bigger, better, “smarter” and faster online search engines. ( evolving every day )

8. Online satellite and map searches that use latitude, longitude location information for locating places. ( exists )

8. Location stamps encoded onto digital photo files from GPS cell phone cameras or GPS chips placed in any portable digital camera ( possible )

The possibilities from these 8 pervasive and possible technologies are endless; but, basically, you get the potential for online digital photos that can be searched and identified by an individual’s name on Google, and tell you the date, time and location of that individual when the photo was taken. Additionally, these photos could be linked to a map like Google Earth and Google Maps for a graphical view of the location – and let’s not forget the ease of obtaining driving directions to the photo location from your current location, using these same map searches.

Now, is there anything we left out? Please feel free to add your ideas and insights to the comments section under this post.

Skipease offers a free people search and web search directory for use on your web-enabled cell phone or wireless mobile device.

We have collected the best free online people search, reverse address lookup, reverse phone lookup, Google web and local search as well as map / driving directions sites that were specifically designed for use on your cell phone or wireless mobile device.

You can access the Skipease mobile people search and web search directory at Skipease Mobile Searches. Save this link to your web-enabled cell phone, wireless pda or mobile device for easy access to the top free people search and web search sites on the go.

ZDNet is reporting on a new artificial intelligence program that can translate languages, speech-to-speech, using electrodes attached to a person’s face and throat.  Researchers believe that the language translator could be implanted in a person’s mouth within the next decade for seamless, real-time speech translation.

You can read the entire article posted by Roland Piquepaille on ZDNet at Can your mouth become multilingual?