Fujitsu's Citywide Surveillance

http://www.fujitsu.com/global/solutions/business-technology/tc/sol/greenages-cs/

by AndrewDucker • 9 years ago

74 38 9 years ago

fujitsu.com

robert_foss• 9 years ago

The marketing department must've been asleep at the wheels on this one.

jstanley• 9 years ago

I don't know, this probably sells it pretty well to the kind of people who would want to buy it.

We just have to remember that there are people out there who legitimately think deploying surveillance technology like this is a good thing.

narag• 9 years ago

Anyone watching police series on tv knows how useful total surveillance is.

AboutTheWhisles• 9 years ago

My biggest problems with things like this are that everyone is subjected to it, but not everyone has access to it. In seems almost dystopian that our surveillance applies to the people paying for it, but not the people deciding on it. I can't watch a live stream of a politician's meetings, but governments have access to where everyone goes with their car at all times.

a3n2• 9 years ago

I think it's more banal than that. There are people out there who are always looking for something more to sell, and there are people out there who are always looking for more program to be associated with who will buy it.

659087• 9 years ago

Detection of suspicious individuals by clothing color. Sounds like Fujitsu is using the TSA training manual to train this system.

I'm sure "by skin color" will be an option as well.

Also note "strengthened marketing" and "customer counting" being listed as selling points on the airport scenario of a "citywide surveillance" system.

sokoloff• 9 years ago

Maybe they just missed a comma between "clothing" and "color".

marcosdumay• 9 years ago

Detection of suspicious individuals by clothing color.

Police seems a crime and reports that suspect is wearing a green shirt. Surveillance system reports everybody that is wearing a green shirt on walking distance of the occurrence.

pavel_lishin4• 9 years ago

A dozen people are arrested, one of whom is shot. Meanwhile, the suspect changes into a yellow t-shirt in a phone booth and makes his getaway. He is caught several days later, of course, as he would have been without the cameras. Total licensing fees to the city are $12,000.

ktpsns• 9 years ago

I like this cartoon: http://www.fujitsu.com/global/Images/Use-case-in-an-airport-...

It looks innocent, makes the impression of a childlike idea how to make the world better. The isometric Legoland country airport supports this feeling even more. The whole picture speaks one language: We don't harm.

pavel_lishin4• 9 years ago

Detection of suspicious individuals by clothing color, of course. Evildoers always wear a particular shade of purple.

chrischen• 9 years ago

Yes but if the deep learning model says it it’s probably true.

fvdessen2• 9 years ago

"By clothing color, etc. " I wonder what's in the etc. Age, sex, skin color, religion, tattoos, walking pace, gait, facial recognition ?

retox• 9 years ago

The picture is so small I initially read it as "Detection of Suspicious Individuals (by clothing, color, etc.)"

a3n2• 9 years ago

It looks innocent, makes the impression of a childlike idea how to make the world better.

It answer's Richard Scarry's question, "What do people do all day?" [1]

They watch each other.

[1] Still one of my favorite books.

musage2• 9 years ago

Currently, urban infrastructure is increasingly getting more complex as we face many social challenges, such as complicated crimes and unexpected natural disasters. This situation requires that the establishment of a safe and secure society become a global concern.

Where to begin... if you're looking for social challenges, don't look further than people who can't think on an adult level being fed marketing materials by people who are just as lost, and no longer seem to even feel the need to hide it.

mrybczyn• 9 years ago

I wonder if this is expressing the culture inherited from the Japanese historical experience? An island culture, homogenous, inward-centered, idolizing the emperor, crushed in WW2, and then relying on the post war rise of the corporate welfare state. This "lost" and dystopian corporate communication from Japanese companies seems typical. Certainly the one I worked for tended to be this way.

meri_dian• 9 years ago

What exactly is your criticism of this?

musage2• 9 years ago

You know, part of me just wants to mirror that, and ask "what is your actual question?", but okay.

Just in the sentence I quoted, "complicated" crimes is just padding, but of course, you can't sell "getting more complex" with the argument of "crime still exists". Then there's "unexpected" natural disasters, which is padding, too. Of course, natural disasters aren't social challenges. "This situation" -- of which there is nothing left other than "crime exists" -- always existed, and what is a "global concern"? People all over the world have been concerned with their personal safety for longer than history exists, so what changed?

Nothing changed, and if I had to guess, based on what we know about corporations and governments monitoring people who care about the environment in the least I'd say they want to peddle total control to prevent uprisings that will come when the natural disasters (we can predict to get worse, since we keep destroying our environment) get out of hand. But that's just a bonus, without that it's just marketing gibberish, and that I needed to point any of this out further eroded my faith in humanity.

chillingeffect• 9 years ago

It's revealing it offers Enhanced Security as well as Strengthened Marketing. This points out how hard "the lords" are trying to make everything predictable.

If they had it their way, we'd all be like chickens in cages - always producing for them and completely unable to deviate from today's accepted norms.

fortythirteen2• 9 years ago

I'd be worried, but given my experience with Fujitsu enterprise solutions, we'll all be in the grave before tech support responds to Big Brother's ticket.

rsbartram• 9 years ago

Surveillance case studies in urban environment have shown to decrease crime rates and more importantly violent crimes. Under the proper circumstances this type of citywide surveillance can be a benefit to modern societies.

neuralynx• 9 years ago

What studies are you referring to?

fortythirteen2• 9 years ago

Oh? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/20/london-now-danger...

stordoff2• 9 years ago

The fact that London's crime rates are not significantly lower than comparable cities makes me doubt this.

Even so, the question is larger than that - a) how well does it work (i.e. would the money be better spent on traditional policing) and b) is it worth what we are giving up (the ability to go about your business without being monitored, tracked, etc.)?

chaostheory• 9 years ago

Used to work in the industry. I could have missed something but none of this, feels new or novel. Systems like this have already been in operation in places like Dubai and Singapore for years

The industry also has issues which may or may not have been resolved by now:

1. It's not an industry that attracts creative or innovative talent.

2. They're not willing to pay well for AI talent (this may have changed)

The end result is that you get mediocre implementations with horrible or mediocre UX. Depending on how you feel about surveillance this is either a good or bad thing.

bem94• 9 years ago

In practice and in principle, this is horrifying. I don't trust the people buying these systems, and I especially don't trust the engineers building them. Nor do they give me any reason to trust them.

Is this sort of thing what we became engineers for? To facilitate the end of privacy? Cmon, we're better than this.

Fujitsu's Citywide Surveillance

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